Étienne Clémentel - The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Part 2 New York Tuesday, April 4, 2017 | Phillips

The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy...

New York 4 April 2017

  • Provenance

    Artcurial, Paris, 21 November 2005, lot 37

  • Catalogue Essay

    The photographs in this and the preceding two lots were taken by Étienne Clémentel, a French politician, painter, photographer, and a friend to many artists of his day. One such artist was Auguste Rodin, who sculpted a portrait bust of Clémentel in 1916. Another was Claude Monet. Visiting the Impressionist painter at his home and gardens in Giverny, Clémentel produced a multi-image portrait of the artist and his home. Monet had purchased Giverny in 1883 and immediately began an ambitious series of building and landscaping that would create the lush and colorful environment we see in these photographs. Clémentel made these photographs in autochrome, the first commercially available color photographic process, one that yielded richly saturated images on glass. From an aesthetic point of view, autochromes, with their softly granular and impressionistic quality, were the perfect medium for Monet and Giverny. In this trio of images, we see the pond Monet designed himself, a large two-panel Les Nymphéas (waterlilies) painting in his studio, and the artist among the flowers in his garden.

114

Étienne Clémentel

Monet à Giverny

1920
Autochrome.
7 x 9 1/2 in. (17.8 x 24.1 cm)

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

Sold for $22,500

Contact Specialist
Caroline Deck
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairman, Americas

General Enquiries:
+1 212 940 1245

The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Part 2

New York 4 April 2017