(Paris) The Entangled Melon, a still life by Chardin (1699-1779), was sold for more than 26 million euros ($39 million) on Wednesday in Paris, a double world record for this painter and for a French painting by 18th century, we learned from Christie’s.
Signed and dated 1760, this oval painting, estimated at “8 to 12 million euros”, was sold at auction for “26.73 million euros (including fees) by telephone auction to a European collector, a world record for a Chardin and also a world record for an 18th century French painting,” Christie’s told AFP.
It is the famous Basket of Strawberries, another still life by the same painter, acquired at the end of February by the Louvre for 24.3 million euros ($36 million), following a donation campaign, which previously held this double record, according to the auction house.
The cut melon represents a slice of melon balanced on a whole melon.
It was presented by Chardin at the Salon de l’Académie in 1761 with another still life, also oval, which is today in Toronto as well as the Basket of Strawberries.
It then belonged to “Jacques Roettiers, goldsmith to Louis XV, and to his descendants, before joining the collection of François Marcille in 1802 during an anonymous sale which allowed a number of art critics and painters of the century of rediscovering Chardin”, according to Pierre Etienne, vice-president of Christie’s France and specialist in old paintings.
In 1876, the painting was acquired by an art dealer on behalf of Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild, from this family of renowned collectors whose heirs decided to put it up for sale.
Before being put up for auction on Wednesday in Paris, it was presented in New York in May and then in Hong Kong.
