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This oil painting, titled The Moat, Breccles , produced by Churchill in 1921, is estimated by Phillips between 1.5 and 2 million dollars, far from the 11.6 million dollars reached by another painting of the “old lion”, sold by Angelina Jolie at Christie’s last March.
But even if no record should be broken, this landscape – which Churchill mentioned in a December 1921 essay on “Painting as a Pastime” – could appeal to history and celebrity fans alike, amid the recent craze for paintings. paintings of the great hero of World War II.
Churchill kept it for 40 years before offering it in 1961, four years before his death, to his friend and jet-set king, Aristotle Onassis, explained Jean-Paul Engelen, vice president of Phillips.
BETANCUR PHOTO, AFP
Jean-Paul Engelen, vice president of Phillips, stands next to a photo of Winston Churchill and Aristotle Onassis.
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The wealthy shipowner was so proud of this gift that he hung it in the place of honor, behind the famous bar – named Ari’s bar – of his yacht, alongside works by Vermeer, Gauguin, Le Greco and Pissarro.
This “super-yacht”, the “Christina” – the first name of Onassis’s daughter – was a former Canadian navy frigate, nearly 100 meters long. It had participated in the Normandy landings, before Onassis bought it after the war for 34,000 dollars.
Onassis had it lavishly renovated, for some $ 4 million, to make it “one of the most incredible floating structures,” and one of the jetset’s favorite spots at the time, says Engelen.
From Elizabeth Taylor to John F. Kennedy, via Maria Callas or Richard Burton, Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, all the big names of the time were on board.
When Onassis died in 1975 – seven years after his marriage to Jackie Kennedy – his yacht was sold, and everything on board put into storage, until his heirs recently decided to part with the board.
To better seduce fans of this mixture of history and stars, the auction house Phillips has reconstituted, in its New York exhibition rooms, the Ari’s Bar – including imitations of its famous whale teeth – and filled the shelves of Pol Roger champagne bottles, the favorite bubbles of the “old lion”.
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