About This Auction

Christie’s presents the collection of Henri Canonne, to be offered right before our 20th/21st Century Art Evening Sale. A name that still echoes today in the parapharmaceutical field with his invention of the Valda soothing tablet for people with respiratory health issues, Henri Canonne also resonates with the greatest names of Impressionist artists. An avid collector with an avant-garde vision, Canonne collected no less than 40 paintings by Claude Monet, including 17 water-lily paintings, most of which are now part of the collections of some of the world’s leading institutions. Other artists that entered his collection include the Impressionists Sisley and Renoir, the neo-Impressionists Signac and Cross, but also the post-Impressionists ‘Nabi’ painters the likes of Bonnard, Vuillard and Roussel, and even the more modern artists like Vlaminck, Dufy and Utrillo. This auction presents a unique opportunity to own a piece curated by Canonne’s discerning eye, which encompasses a museum-quality painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La Leçon d’écriture, which is the pendant to the one housed in the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, a portrait of a lady and a sensual nude by the same artist. Other highlights include a snapshot view of a Pontoise landscape painted by Camille Pissarro in 1874, the year of the First Impressionist Exhibition held in Paris, and a intimiste scene by Pierre Bonnard, in which he plays on the mirror reflections of his nude model. A rare group of 14 Jongkind watercolours, tracing back the artist’s travels throughout France, two North African landscapes by Albert Marquet and several works by Utrillo, Vlaminck, Dufy, Roussel and Signac complete this exciting ensemble, beaing witness to the prestigious ‘Canonne taste’.