Sotheby’s has begun showing five paintings in London from the collection of Argentine heiress Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and her husband Carlos Pedro Blaquier ahead of the November auction in New York. For the 12 works from this collection, the auction house expects to raise about $450 million. Seven of the 12 works were bought in the 1970s at London’s Lefevre Gallery on Bruton Street, when the Argentine couple came to London for art almost every year.
The main London lot is Paul Cézanne’s late “Harlequin”, which has not been shown in London since 1954. Sotheby’s expects it to fetch about $120 million, which could set an auction record for the artist, although in 2012, according to reports, the state of Qatar paid more than $250 million for Cézanne’s “The Card Players” in a private sale. Sotheby’s calls this selection a “time capsule” of the golden moment when the family was collecting Impressionists and modernists.
The group also includes “La Place du Théâtre-Français, soleil d’après-midi en hiver” by Camille Pissarro, “Le Jardin des Tuileries” by Claude Monet, “Nature morte à la cruche bleue” by Maurice de Vlaminck, and “En Canot (Jeune fille à la barque)” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Pissarro is estimated at $30–40 million and has not been shown in London since 1942–43, Monet at $15–20 million and has not been exhibited there since 1957, Vlaminck’s still life at $2–3 million and has not appeared in London since 1969, and “En Canot”, painted in 1877, has never been shown in London and is estimated at $25–35 million. Sotheby’s also confirmed that it has guaranteed the sale of all 12 works, without disclosing the guarantee amount.
After London, the collection will travel to Taipei, Hong Kong, and Paris, and then return to New York for the November sales. Sotheby’s considers Taiwan a particularly important stop because of its deeply rooted circle of Impressionist collectors. Separately, the auction house said that a dispute with Argentine customs over the export of roughly a dozen paintings to Luxembourg in 2023 was settled this year.
The family collection was kept for decades at the La Biznaga estate near Buenos Aires and was almost closed to the public. Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier, the sole heir to the sugar company Ledesma, and Carlos Pedro Blaquier married in 1951; he became president of the company in 1970 and remained in that post until 2013. In 2012, Blaquier was charged with alleged involvement in kidnappings during the 1976 military dictatorship; he denied the accusations and died before going to trial. Not included in the London display is van Gogh’s “Châtaignier en fleurs roses et blanches”, painted in May 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, a town northwest of Paris; Sotheby’s values it at $180 million and expects $200 million or more, while the artist’s current auction record is $117 million for Orchard with Cypresses, sold by Christie’s in New York in 2022. The work was last publicly shown at New York’s Guggenheim in 1964, and Sotheby’s plans to include it in later stops on the tour.
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