A dozen Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces, together valued at nearly half a billion dollars, are headed to auction after remaining hidden for decades in a legendary private collection in South America.
Sotheby’s said Wednesday that works by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne could set new auction records for both artists when they are offered in New York on Nov. 18. The sale is the latest indication that, amid economic and geopolitical uncertainty, ultrawealthy collectors are turning to exceptional artworks as a store of value.
The paintings belonged to the collection assembled by the late Argentine art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and her husband, sugar magnate Carlos Pedro Blaquier. Their children are now offering the works for sale.
Among the highlights are van Gogh’s landscape Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Trees in Flower), estimated at $180 million, and Cézanne’s portrait Arlequin, valued at $120 million. Neither painting has been publicly exhibited in 50 years.
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Helena Newman, Sotheby’s global head of Impressionist and Modern art, compared the collection to a “mini-Musée D’Orsay,” referring to the Paris museum renowned for its holdings of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art.
“In my 30-plus years at Sotheby’s, I’ve never had the privilege of handling a collection of quite this content and caliber,” Newman said.
Newman said van Gogh’s flowering chestnut trees convey the “explosion of energy and vitality” the artist experienced after leaving a psychiatric asylum in May 1890. Van Gogh died by suicide two months later.
Cézanne’s portrait is one of four paintings depicting the artist’s son dressed as the Harlequin, a clowning character. The other three works are held by major museums.
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The collection also features Paris scenes by Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, an Edgar Degas painting centered on horse racing and a boating scene by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Each is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars.
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Philip Hook, a former Sotheby’s auctioneer and an expert in the art market, said the collection had become “the stuff of legend” because its owners never loaned the works for exhibitions.
“No one knew really what was in it. So now, for this to be revealed, is tremendously exciting,” Hook said.
The collectors, he added, “rather cleverly” built the collection around a representative work by each of the major figures in Impressionist and post-Impressionist art—an exceptionally difficult feat.
Newman expects the auction to draw worldwide interest, from American technology billionaires and wealthy buyers in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia to well-funded institutions in the Middle East.
“In times where there’s a lot of global macro geopolitical uncertainty, it’s almost like there’s a return to really established, tried and tested” works that are “unquestionably great,” Newman said.
A museum-quality Impressionist collection of this scale and rarity, she added, is “pretty rare.”