James Abbott MCNEILL WHISTLER - Lot 321

Important collection of posters and prints, mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries, Books and manuscripts

Sale in aid of the Institut Pasteur.

Public exhibition at Hôtel Drouot on :

- Thursday, September 19 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m,

- and the morning of the sale from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

A few words about this collection

The history of this collection is unknown to us. For us, it begins with a chance discovery, during a routine estate inventory meeting; that of a man about whom we know nothing except that he was at one point in his life an antique dealer.

In the Porte Dauphine district, this opaque, cluttered apartment gradually revealed its contents to us, revealing what we're all looking for: abundance and taste. Here, almost 800 paintings and some 20,000 sheets of paper (drawings, prints, photos) accumulated, sometimes anarchically.

We know almost nothing about this unmapped collection, a collector unknown to the leading experts. What emerges from this heap is the character of a solitary man, an art history buff, a tireless defender of the Artist, whether painter, draughtsman, sculptor or photographer. We would like to understand, to know more, to interpret what drove this man to accumulate, often without exhibiting them, so many paintings and drawings. We can only speculate.

The dispersal of this collection over nearly seven sales reflects this quest and mystery. They give us a shadowy view of this man with a passion for art and discovery. It also reveals that this aggregation, the quest of a lifetime, was not in vain: his entire collection, now revealed, will be sold for the benefit of the Institut Pasteur.

Romain Nouel

Auctioneer