PIASA has the privilege of organizing the sale of a private collection originally from the Max Pellequer collection. Comprising some fifty extremely rare lots, this auction bears witness to the extraordinary collection of modern art, mainly dating from the 1920s-30s, that banker and collector Max Pellequer built up through his dealings with Picasso. The selection consists largely of pieces (letters, books, drawings, sculptures, etc.) all related to the artist, of whom Pellequer was a very close friend.
The sale will close with a major work by the artist Paul Sérusier, Les Batteurs de blé (1893), also from the same private collection.
Max Pellequer was a French banker and collector who amassed an important collection of modernist works in the 1920s and 1930s, including a major group of works by Pablo Picasso. In 1920, Max Pellequer married Francine Level, the niece of art dealer and businessman André Level. It was Level who introduced his nephew by marriage, Max Pellequer, to Pablo Picasso. The banker became not only the artist's financial advisor for over thirty years, but also his friend and one of his most important collectors.
◊ Exceptional letter from Pablo Picasso to his friend Max Jacob testifying to the bonds so special that united the two men.
Estimate: €500,000 / €800,000
© Succession Picasso 2024
The collection is characterized by very rare pieces, untouched by any transaction on the market, but also very singular, such as these sketches and preparatory studies, as well as several writings (letters and postcards) that Picasso addressed to his friend, without being able to resist adorning them with drawings and sketches. In this spirit, we also find a letter dated 1903 that Picasso, who had arrived in Paris two years earlier, wrote to his then great friend Max Jacob, whom he had met at the Bateau Lavoir.
Here, too, sketches enhance the text, the only difference being that these drawings foreshadow details and figures that Picasso was to employ in major works. This was a recurring practice for Picasso, as in this Harlequin scrawled in Indian ink on a bank document on the letterhead of the Banque Nationale de Crédit, owned by the Pellequer brothers. The selection also includes several editions decorated with Picasso's interventions, tapestry projects, ceramics and sculptures, including a patinated bronze depicting a "Femme se coiffant".
◊ Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Harlequin in profile, 1926
Estimate: €10,000 / €15,000
© Succession Picasso 2024
Finally, to close the sale, the selection takes a slight step aside with the presentation of a painting by Paul Sérusier. Trained at the Beaux-arts in Paris, this artist settled in Brittany in the early 1880s and became a major figure in the Nabis movement. Les Batteurs de blé, painted in 1893, is to be considered one of his masterpieces, perfectly in tune with the symbolist values of the artistic movement to which he made a major contribution.
Paul Sérusier (1864-1927)
Les Batteurs de blé, 1893
Estimate: €600 000 / €900 000
