Christie’s is pleased to announce a magnificent portrait by André Derain titled Madame Matisse au kimono will highlight the Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art on May 8 in New York.
This high fauve masterpiece is the most important portrait by the artist ever to appear at auction and represents a pivotal moment of artistic collaboration between André Derain and Henri Matisse. Derain painted Madame Matisse in August 1905, during the famous summer he spent with Matisse in Collioure, prior to the now celebrated Salon d’Automne exhibition, when fauvism exploded with startling effect on the Parisian art world. Estimated at $15-20 million, the painting comes from a private European collection where it has resided over 40 years and will be presented as a star lot of Christie’s spring auction series devoted to major works of fine art.
Derain depicts Amélie in the elegant, patterned Japanese kimono which she often wore and in which she was painted by her husband, as well as several of his other fauve colleagues. Derain presents her wrapped in the softly draping folds of the kimono, with its swirling blue arabesques contrasting with the sensuous white, holding a red fan and sitting pensively with one elbow resting on a table for support.
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