Top-100 artists:
We use our proprietary AI - LiveArt Estimate™ to calculate current market value for each artwork. Based on this data LiveArt is able to provide numerous insights into artist and artwork financial performance, including:
See the measure of artist investment performance relative to risk. A higher ratio suggests better risk-adjusted returns, indicating more consistent performance with less risk.
Explore the most prolific periods in an artist's career based on artwork production volume and current market value. It also segments these periods by category, offering insights into when the most valuable pieces were created in each category.
Free to sign up. No credit card required.
| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jun 19, 2015 | Heritage Auctions | Dallas | European Art Signature Auction | 69005 | $****** - ****** | Lieur de gerbe (Étude pour 'La Moisson,' l'un des 4 panneaux du grand décor du Conseil d'État, Paris) |
paintings
26.7 x 34.3 cm (10.5 x 13.5 in)
oil on board
Signed lower right: Henri Martin
Jacques Martin-Ferrières
Wally Findlay Galleries International, Inc., acquired from the above, January 1966
Wally Findlay Galleries, Chicago, Illinois
Private collection, Kansas, acquired from the above, October 23, 1969
Private collection, Texas, by descent from the above.In addition to his signature Pointillist paintings of his verdant estate, Marquayrol, in southwestern France, Henri Martin executed a number of large-scale decorations for civic buildings, including the Sorbonne, the Palais Royal, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Conseil d'État. The present lot, Lieur de gerbe (One Who Sheafs Wheat) is a preliminary study for a figure in La Moisson (The Harvest), one of the four groups of monumental paintings surrounding the General Assembly Hall of the Conseil d'État in Paris, a commission Martin realized from 1914-26. Illustrating Working France Presents Itself to the Conseil d'État, the series personifies the themes of Agriculture/Harvest (farmers laboring in a field), Commerce (fishermen bustling about the docks of the Old Port of Marseille), Civil Engineering (a construction crew building the Place de la Concorde in Paris), and Intellectual Work (a man walking alone in a pine grove and holding a book). Crowning these paintings in the room is a gilded frieze with 1873 allegorical paintings by Jules-Élie Delaunay depicting twelve government ministries from the Third Republic. Collectively, the decorative scheme emphasizes that the Conseil d'État, as the French legislative body, is the heart of France, while also reminding Conseil members to consider all facets of society when making their important decisions.The wall in the General Assembly Hall with Martin's Agriculture/Harvest consists of three paintings - a modified triptych - inset within paneling and interrupted by a door in the central harvest section. From left to right, the paintings move from spring through summer and fall, with the corresponding farming activities of sowing, harvesting, and plowing. The scene shows traditional and progressive farming co-existing, as the farmers employ both scythes and mechanized harvesters. Martin produced numerous preliminary studies for these figures, and Lieur de gerbe, circa 1914-15, is an early rendering of the harvester to the immediate left of the door, who gathers a bundle of wheat while a lovely peasant lady stands over him. Even as a small, single-figure work, Lieur de gerbe is a jewel, exhibiting the richness of Martin's palette and light and the deft movement of his brushwork.Lieur de gerbe is additionally exceptional in that it features on the verso a panoramic landscape painting (a continuation of two halves) by Martin's son, Jacques Martin-Ferrieres, who also practiced a Post-Impressionist aesthetic. Marie-Anne Destrebecq-Martin, wife of Henri Martin's grandson Cyrille Martin, describes the uniqueness of this double-sided work: "Imagine Henri Martin and Jacques Martin-Ferrieres in the 1920s painting together in the countryside. JMF has no more board to make an esquisse, [and] HM gives him this one, bearing a 'no-valuable' study. This 'little un-valuable board' is a very important testimony of a four hands work, HM-JMF. The more I know their lives, the more I see their paintings, the more I'm sure they painted together often, regularly and with a fabulous happiness that [emanates] from their works" (email correspondence with Mary Adair Dockery, Heritage Auctions, March 20, 2015).We wish to thank Cyrille Martin and Marie-Anne Destrebecq-Martin for their gracious assistance in cataloguing this lot, which is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Cyrille Martin.
