Deruet’s view of the Amazons’ resting place

Belonging to the valuable Lorraine school of the early17th century, this artist signed here an antique conversation, followed by a Buddha from China.

Claude Deruet was the author of a drawing depicting Deux amazones à cheval (Two Amazons on horseback), set in pen, brown ink and brown wash containing traces of gold, on traces of a black stone drawing. This delicate sheet sold for €69,500 to a French collector, just ahead of an American connoisseur. It is true that this drawing is part of a group of studies of Amazons executed by Deruet after he took over from Jacques Bellange as court painter to the Duke of Lorraine, i.e. around 1620. It should also be noted that a drawing from this series is in the Morgan Library in New York (no. 1959.4) and another, very similar in composition, in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (no. 178-1863). The operator did not wish to communicate on the two terracotta busts of the presumed Portraits of Henri-Jules de Bourbon-Condé (1643-1709) and Anne-Henriette de Bavière (1648-1723), seen in Gazette no. 9. Next, destination Imperial China, with the following lot : a grey limestone statue of a bodhisattva, from the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534), which attracted €16 ,740 . He is depicted seated on a bench, right hand raised in front of his chest, left hand resting on his knee, dressed in a long robe and wearing a cap, two lions at his side, with traces of polychromy (h. 35 cm).