Three Cézanne paintings belonging to the Langmatt Museum in Baden (AG) were sold at auction on the night of Thursday to Friday in New York for a total of $44.8 million. The proceeds from the sale help save the museum, the latter indicated.
The amount of the sale converted into Swiss francs reached 40.32 million, more than the 40 million francs necessary to ensure the long-term future of the museum, the institution said in a press release. This is a good result considering the tense market situation, she added.
The painting ‘Fruits and a Ginger Jar’ was the first to be offered at auction by Christie’s in New York. It went for $33.5 million, according to a live stream of the sale. The painting had been estimated at between $35 and $55 million.
The two other works of the French painter who died in 1906, ‘Four apples and a knife’ and ‘The sea at l’Estaque’, found buyers at 8.7 million dollars and 2.6 million dollars respectively.
Sale criticized
The announcement of this sale of paintings had sparked criticism. This is a ‘breaking of the dike’ and a ‘taboo’, declared Tobia Bezzola, president of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and museum director in Lugano. The sale calls into question a consensus among museums according to which we do not touch the collections, he said.
“The sale of last resort was a painful step for us,” explained the director of the Langmatt museum, Markus Stegmann in a press release on Friday. Thanks to the success of the auction, the collection will be preserved in its historical context and will remain accessible to the public, he added.
The proceeds from the sale should make it possible to increase the capital of the museum foundation. This will be able to make its contribution to the complete renovation of the Langmatt museum, the city of Baden said in a press release on Friday. In June, the citizens of the Aargau city approved a credit of 10 million francs for the complete renovation of the museum, the cost of which amounts to 18.8 million francs.
The Langmatt Museum has an important collection of works by French impressionists: Paul Cézanne, Claude Monnet, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Gauguin. The paintings are exhibited at the Langmatt, an old villa built around 1900 by one of the founders of the company Brown Boveri & Cie.
/ATS
2023-11-10 05:17:00
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