A masterpiece by Émile Bernard for the Musée d’Orsay

1. Émile Bernard (1868-1941)
Bathers with Water Lilies, c. 1889
Oil on canvas - 92.2 x 72.8 cm
Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Photo: Christie’s

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25/10/23 - Acquisition - Paris, Musée d’Orsay - Some collections appear to be inexhaustible, despite decades of varied sales: Christie’s was thus able to play it safe by announcing yet more Josefowitz sales this autumn, several years after the death of this great art lover who died in his nineties in 2015. The late Samuel Josefowitz himself orchestrated several spectacular sales during his lifetime, not to mention the fine collection sold to the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the documentation that went to the Musée de Pont-Aven. We recall in particular the fantastic Caillebotte bought - for a staggering sum - by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2011, and of course the various paintings that went to the Musée d’Orsay, including the exceptional Portrait of Yvonne Lerolle in Three Aspects by Maurice Denis acquired the previous year (see the news item of 11/6/10). The Paris institution certainly could not miss the opportunity to add to its collections the Bathers with Water Lilies that went on sale last Friday at Christie’s in Paris along with other relics from the Josefowitz collection and immediately preempted this fine painting (ill. 1) just sold for €650,000 hammer [1].

2. Émile Bernard (1868-1941)
Bathers with Red Cow, c. 1889
Oil on canvas - 92 x 73 cm
Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Photo: RMN-GP/P. Schmidt

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This seemed a perfectly natural destination, as the Musée d’Orsay already housed fourteen paintings by Émile Bernard, including the famous (ill. 2) Bathers with Red Cow which came from the same composition as the Josefowitz painting! Donated by Christian de Galéa in 1984, these are among the six works by the artist currently on display at the museum, in the same room - 40 - as his 1891 Symbolic Self-Portrait, acquired in 2008, and another…