Paul Gauguin’s Painting Restituted to Ambroise Vollard’s Heirs Could Fetch $15 Million

Paul Gauguin’s painting, Nature morte avec pivoines de chine et mandoline, which hung on the walls of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris for nearly 40 years before it was restituted to heirs of early 20th-century Paris art dealer Ambroise Vollard, will be auctioned next month at Sotheby’s in New York.

An example of the artist’s early experiments with post-impressionism, the still life is expected to sell for between US$10 million and US$15 million, before fees.

Nature morte is among a group of four works that were returned to Vollard’s descendants following years of legal proceedings, Sotheby’s said in a news release Thursday. The other three include a landscape by Pierre-August Renoir, Paysage de bord de mer, 1884, with a low estimate of US$1 million; a red chalk work on paper by Renoir, Le Jugement de Pâris, circa 1915, which has low estimate of US$300,000; and a watercolor and pencil work on paper by Paul Cézanne, Sous-bois, circa 1882-84, with a low estimate of US$250,000.

All three artists, alongside Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, and many others, were championed and supported by Vollard, Sotheby’s said.

“The name Ambroise Vollard is one that resonates deeply across generations of the art world, as one of the most legendary dealers of the 20th century,” Allegra Bettini, Sotheby’s head of the modern evening auction in New York, said in the release.

“Each of these works speak to his importance as a central figure who helped shape modern art and whose legacy is still felt today,” she said.

While Vollard died unexpectedly in 1939 before the Nazi occupation of France, his brother, Lucien, who held close ties with the Nazis, and some other art dealers stole and sold thousands of artworks belonging to the dealer. Many of the pieces were sold to Nazi members or German museums and dealers, according to Sotheby’s.

Gauguin’s Nature morte was painted in 1885 when the artist began to pursue his art full time after losing his job as a stockbroker. This still life marked a point in the artist’s career when he began to experiment with vivid colors, a shift that Sotheby’s said became the basis of the post-impressionist movement.

At that time, Gauguin’s new direction got attention from both Vollard, who organised several major exhibitions after Gauguin’s departure for Tahiti in the 1890s, and van Gogh, who invited Gauguin to join him in Arles, France, a few years later, according to Sotheby’s.

The painting is “filled with rich hues and striking tonal contrasts, including the use of blue—something rare in Gauguin’s palette,” Sotheby’s said.

The four works were unveiled Thursday at Sotheby’s galleries in Paris. They will be auctioned at its modern evening sale on May 16 in New York.

Gauguin’s auction record was set during the sale of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen last year. The 1899 painting Maternité II sold for US$106 million, with fees.