Special Collections

Sold on 3 April 1998

1 part

.

A Collection of Historical and Art Medals, the Property of a European Collector

Lot

№ 664

.

3 April 1998

Hammer Price:
£60

Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, 1890, a bronze Members’ plaque by A.-L.-M. Charpentier, conjoined busts of Puvis de Chavannes and Meissonier left, reverse named (Alfred Stevens), 59 x 39mm (PBE –; Coll. R. Marx 265; MFC pl.25; BDM I, 411; cf. Baudey/Bricher 1992, 17). Almost extremely fine and rare, a most interesting association piece (£60-80)

Alfred-Émile Stevens (1823-1906), Belgian painter, active mostly in Paris. He is chiefly known today for his pictures of young ladies portrayed in elegant interiors, dressed in the height of fashion, although he also painted a number of coastal and marine scenes in the style of Eugene Boudin. Stevens was a friend and supporter of Manet and influenced Whistler. In 1900 he became the first living artist to be given a one-man exhibition at the École des Beaux-Arts.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-98), muralist and symbolist; Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-91), French genre painter