‘My highlight of 2018’ — Odalisque couchée aux magnolias by Henri Matisse

Jessica Fertig, Senior Vice President of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York, selects the once-in-a-lifetime sale of the greatest painting by Matisse ever to come to market.

Henri Matisse 's (1869-1954), Odalisque couchée aux magnolias hanging in the Rockefeller's Hudson Pines estate. Artwork: © Succession H. Matisse/ DACS 2018

The highlight of the year in Impressionist and Modern art at Christie’s was, undoubtedly, The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller: 19th and 20th Century Art Evening Sale  on 8 May in New York. 

The top price of the night was achieved with Picasso’s Fillette à la corbeille fleurie, which fetched $115,000,000, making it the second-most expensive painting by the Spanish great ever sold at auction. There were also artist records for Delacroix, Corot, and Monet, whose waterlilies painting Nymphéas en fleur  realised $84,687,500.

For Jessica Fertig, however, the standout lot of the Rockefeller sale — and, indeed, of all 2018 — was Matisse’s Odalisque couchée aux magnolias. ‘To stand in front of it was to experience all the sensuality, stunning patterning and glorious colour you dream of when you think of this artist,’ says the Senior Vice President of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s in New York. ‘It’s the greatest Matisse ever to have come to market.’

The painting depicts Matisse’s favourite model, the dancer Henriette Darricarrère, in luxurious repose in his studio in Nice. It is part of the artist’s celebrated series of paintings from the 1920s and 1930s known as the Odalisques, featuring exotic-looking females in elaborately decorative interiors — and ‘this is one of the very finest of them’, says Fertig. ‘Henriette’s pose is almost sculptural.’

David Rockefeller bought Odalisque couchée aux magnolias  in 1958, under the guidance of his friend Alfred Barr, the first director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). It was then hung in the living room of the Rockefellers’ Hudson Pines residence, north of New York City.

The painting ended up selling for $80,750,000 (including buyer’s premium), a world auction record for the artist — the previous high for a work by Matisse at auction was $48.8 million, set in 2010. ‘During the sale, I remember the excitement and activity in the room were immense,’ says Fertig. ‘A number of top collectors were vying to take this once-in- a-lifetime opportunity.’

‘It was a sale like no other I've experienced, an utterly unforgettable night’ — Jessica Fertig

The Rockefeller sale of 19th and 20th-century art featured 44 lots and realised the huge sum of $646,133,594, with every work selling. ‘It was a sale like no other I’ve experienced, an utterly unforgettable night,’ recalls the specialist. ‘Not just for the depth and quality of the works themselves, with masterpiece following masterpiece,  but for their provenance — in having been owned by the great American couple, Peggy and David Rockefeller — and also for the charitable context’. All the proceeds from the series of auctions in May went to charities the couple had supported.

‘It’s hard to put it any better,’ Fertig concludes, ‘than to say this was an extraordinary painting from the extraordinary sale of an extraordinary collection.’

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