On May 15, 2012, at 6pm, Sotheby’s France will auction photographs from the 19th, 20th and 21st century. Among the 110 lots in the catalog, we specially remarked lot number 4, an exceptional photo album with 9 salt prints by Gustave Le Gray made for the 1852 Salon. 

After Gustave Le Gray’s success as a photographer for the Héliographique Mission 1851, Philippe de Chennevières, inspector for the Musées de Province in charge of displaying the works of living artists, asked him to document the main works of the Salon de Paris of 1852. The photographer produced two albums of this series. One is owned by the Musée d’Orsay and the second is in this Sotheby’s auction. 
The two copies contain 9 salt paper prints, each bearing a dry stamp by Le Gray. The binding of the album on sale at Sotheby’s presents a golden crowned letter M on the back, attributed to Princess Mathilde Laetitia Wilhelmine, a cousin of Napoléon III. When Le Gray received this commission, Count Emilien de Nieuwerkerke, Princesse Mathilde’s official companion, was general director of the Musées Nationaux in charge of organizing the Salon de Paris.

Estimation of the album: 240000 / 280000 €

The auction opens with a rare daguerréotype of a whirling dervish of the Mevlevi order, taken in the Ottoman Empire during the 1840’s. A quarter plate (10 x 7 cm) that is also one of the first known images of the dervishes.
Estimation : 20000 / 25000 €. 

Also noteworthy is the album produced by William Pryor Floyd, Vistas of Macau, near 1870. These pictures were taken during Portuguese rule. Estimation:18000 / 23000 €. 

For the period qualified by Sotheby’s as "Vintage and Modernist", there are four major portraits of artists by Man Ray: Picasso Estimation : 7000 / 10000 €, Miró (Estimation : 5000 / 7000 €), Derain (Estimation : 5000 / 7000 €) Léger and Vlaminck (Estimation : 4000 / 6000 €). 
They were originally part of a Sotheby’s auction in May 1995. 
In addition, other portraits of artists taken by Robert Doisneau during the 1940’s and 1950’s: Jean Dubuffet in his studio (Estimation : 8000 / 12000 €) and Fernand Leger talking in a café with Blaise Cendrars (estimation : 4000 / 6000 €).

A group of pictures taken by Ilse Bing in the 1930’s in Paris, "Danseuse de Cancan, Moulin-Rouge, 1933" (Estimation : 4000 / 6000 €), "Le coup de vent, Tour Eiffel", 1931 (Estimation : 4000 / 6000 €) and the renowned Autoportrait avec Leica, 1931 (Estimation: , 5000 / 7000 €). But also, "Portrait d’un couple" and "Portrait d’une dame" by Kertész, towards 1931 in Paris (Estimation : 15000 / 20000 €). And "The Magic Garden During a Summer Shower", 1954-1959 by Josef Sudek (Estimation : 10000 /15000 €).

The auction will also be offering major fashion photographs with the Peter Lindbergh portfolio from 2001 including ten platinum-palladium prints taken between 1984 and 1995. (Estimation 40000 / 50000 €). 
A large format print of Helmut Newton’s famous "Big Nude IX, The two Violettas", taken n Paris in 1991 (Estimation : 90000 /120000 €). A platinum-palladium pring by Irving Penn entitled "Cocoa Dress" (Balenciaga), Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn, Paris, 1950 (Estimation : 45000 / 65000 €). 
  
For the contemporary section, Sotheby’s will feature an emblematic Joel Sternfeld picture, "McLean, Virginia December 1978" (Estimation : 40000 / 60000 €).


This section will also offer prints like the diptyque by Brasilian artist Vik Muniz taken in 1999. Belonging to the series "Tableaux de Chocolat", it features Géricault’s "Le radeau de la Méduse" (Estimation : 60000 / 80000 €).
By Ahmet Ertug "Le siège principal de la Société Générale à Paris", 2011 (Estimation: 30000 / 40000 €). In november 2011, during the Sotheby's Paris sale, this artist’s record was beaten with 60750 € for "Panthéon", a picture from the same year.

On May 15, at 2:30pm, Sotheby’s Paris is offering a sale of Books and Manuscripts with 180 lots of books, letters, historical documents by Mallarmé, Voltaire, Guillaume Apollinaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Orson Welles… 

Among them, the only known copy of a picture taken by Étienne Carjat towards 1870 and offered to Verlaine by Ernest Boutier, his violinist friend. 
Ce portrait from the Henri Matarasso collection is estimated 20000 / 30000 €.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine@orange.fr

AUCTIONS
Photographs : May 15th, 2012 - 6pm
Books and Manuscripts : May 15th, 2012 - 2.30pm

Sotheby's Paris
76 rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré
75008 Paris

EXHIBITION
May 10th - 14th : 10am to 6pm

Infos :
Simone Klein
Directeur du département Photographies en Europe
simone.klein@sothebys.com