October at auction: Mondrian in London, Kandinsky restituted

• 1920the year of Mondrian's Composition III
• $30Mreserve estimate for Das bunte Leben
• At least 900works in the Magnum Opus collection

Christie's is offering in London, on 14 October, Composition III (1920) by Piet Mondrian, as part of its evening sale of 20th and 21st century art. The estimate is £20 to 30 million. The Art Newspaper also highlights, among October's sales, a restituted Kandinsky and, on 21 October at Sotheby's in New York, a marble torso of a Roman emperor.

A 1920 Mondrian, never before offered at auction

painting:painting-inspired-by-piet-mondrian-composition-no-10-artist-tribute-no-1|Composition No. 10|Inspired by Piet Mondrian

Composition III comes to auction for the first time and has not been publicly exhibited for 25 years. It is one of the rare paintings from 1920 still in private hands. Its former owner was the modernist architect and collector Armand P. Bartos, together with his wife Celeste.

painting:painting-inspired-by-composition-with-red-blue-and-yellow-by-piet-mondrian-no-1-tribute-to-famous-artist|Composition in Red, Blue and Yellow|Inspired by Piet Mondrian|left

The year 1920 marks a turning point in Mondrian's career: he established the principles of Neoplasticism, which reduces forms to geometric abstraction. He produced only eight large paintings that year, five of which are now in museums, including Tate in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

According to Christie's, the estimate for Composition III is the highest for a Mondrian work at auction in Europe since 2009.

The restituted Kandinsky returns to the market

painting:painting-inspired-by-yellow-red-blue-by-wassily-kandinsky-no-1-tribute-to-famous-artist|Yellow-Red-Blue|Inspired by Wassily Kandinsky

Das bunte Leben, painted in 1907 by Wassily Kandinsky, is estimated at more than $30 million. It was acquired in 1927 by the Dutch Jewish businessman and collector Emanuel Albert Lewenstein and his wife Hedwig Lewenstein-Weyermann. Lent to the Stedelijk Museum, it was withdrawn shortly after the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, then sold at auction in October of that same year.

The collector Salomon B. Slijper later bought it, and the Bayerische Landesbank acquired it from the Slijper family in 1972. From 1973, the painting was on long-term loan to the Lenbachhaus in Munich, where the public saw it for more than 50 years.

The Lewenstein heirs spent decades researching the family collection, then sued the bank in 2017. The restitution dates from June 2023, and this sale marks the painting's first appearance on the market since then.

Sotheby's: a marble torso and head

The Magnum Opus Evening Auction on 21 October belongs to a series drawn from an anonymous private collection of more than 900 works. Its centerpiece is a marble torso of a Roman emperor from the Julio-Claudian period, estimated at $8 to 12 million. The torso is thought to represent Augustus, Tiberius or Claudius.

The torso wears a cuirass decorated with Sol, the Roman sun god, riding a chariot accompanied by winged Victories. According to The Art Newspaper, this garment signalled to ancient viewers military success and divine favour. The torso, estimated at between $800,000 and $1.2 million in 2010, had then sold for $7.36 million, fees included.

A young woman's head from the Augustan period is also offered, estimated at $2.5 to 3.5 million. The head is said to resemble Livia, the emperor's wife: serene face, gentle features, elaborate hairstyle. A former piece from the Schwarzenberg collection, it sold for $2.2 million in 2014.

Our view

These sales remind us that a work carries its history with it, from its successive owners to its return to its rightful heirs. We see it as a reason to look at a painting while also thinking about the journey it has made.

Source: The Art Newspaper.

wall:In the spirit of Piet Mondrian|mondrian-inspired-paintings|See Mondrian-inspired paintings|Walensky Paintings|painting-inspired-by-composition-no-10-by-piet-mondrian-no-1-tribute-to-famous-artist~Composition No. 10~5;painting-inspired-by-composition-with-red-blue-and-yellow-by-piet-mondrian-no-1-tribute-to-famous-artist~Composition in Red, Blue and Yellow~3;painting-inspired-by-composition-with-red-blue-and-yellow-by-piet-mondrian-no-2-tribute-to-famous-artist~Composition in Red, Blue and Yellow~4;painting-inspired-by-composition-in-black-line-and-red-by-piet-mondrian-no-1-tribute-to-famous-artist~Composition Black Line and Red~3;painting-inspired-by-broadway-boogie-woogie-by-piet-mondrian-no-1-tribute-to-famous-artist~Broadway Boogie Woogie~5;painting-inspired-by-composition-no-10-by-piet-mondrian-no-3-tribute-to-famous-artist~Composition No. 10~4