New World Record for Belgian Artist Rik Wouters Set at Christie’s

Belgian art and design took center stage at Christie’s this March with the firm’s sale of the Onzea-Govaerts Collection in Paris. Curated by renowned Belgian designer and tastemaker Axel Vervoordt, the sale totaled an impressive EUR 10 million (USD 11.4 million), including buyer’s premium. This late March event delivered particularly strong results for Belgian artist Rik Wouters: 13 of his works brought in a collective EUR 4.2 million (USD 4.75 million). Wouters’ Reflets, a portrait of his wife, set a new world record for the artist after changing hands for EUR 2.46 million (USD 2.78 million). 

Reflets is an oil on canvas painting executed in Boitsfort, Belgium, in the summer of 1912. Employing the dappled light of Impressionism, the piece shows Hélène “Nel” Wouters in a deep blue dress and chunky yellow necklace, gazing gently up at the viewer. Rik Wouters appreciated the Impressionists’ work and was inspired by it after a trip to Paris in 1912. The delicate colors and lighting of his paintings from this period echo the style of Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. 

Born in 1882 in Mechelen, Belgium, Rik Wouters assisted in his father’s sculpting studio from a young age, igniting a passion for art. However, it took years of experimentation and study for Wouters to develop his own style. He moved from bronze sculpting to color contrast painting around 1905. During Wouters’ most prolific and critically acclaimed period, he produced dozens of paintings each year and collected numerous prizes. 

This rising success was interrupted by World War I. German armies invaded Belgium in August of 1914, a bloody conflict that devastated the country and ultimately involved Britain in the Great War. Wouters fought in the war before being captured and was held in a prisoner-of-war camp for years. His health declined following his release. Wouters died in 1916, at the age of 33. 

Art historians came to identify Wouters as a Fauvist forefather thanks to his exuberant use of color and separation from traditional academic styles. Few of Wouters’ works have come to auction in recent decades, though international interest and prices for his work have steadily climbed since the 1980s. His previous auction record was set in 2018, when Femme En Forêt, Chapeau Bleu À La Main, Bras Levé sold for GBP 1.21 million (USD 1.58 million) at Sotheby’s London. 

The recent Christie’s sale represents a leap forward for Rik Wouters’ market, as well as burgeoning interest in Belgian art in general. The Onzea-Govaerts collection helped elevate Belgian artists while simultaneously taking a global view. “The Onzea-Govaerts collection is deeply marked by the meeting of cultures and eras […] under the keen eye of interior designer Axel Vervoordt,” Christie’s noted in the post-sale press release. 

The auction delivered strong prices for boundary-pushing Italian artist Lucio Fontana and Flemish Renaissance painter Abel Grimmer. The catalog also included a robust selection of antique sculptures, which fared well. An Egyptian granite head of Sekhmet from circa 1390 to 1352 BCE realized EUR 819,000 (USD 927,500); a leopard sculpture by Rembrandt Bugatti sold for EUR 352,800 (USD 399,200); and a Roman marble torso of Venus achieved EUR 315,000 (USD 356,700), nearly eight times the high estimate of EUR 40,000 (USD 45,300). 

This sale enjoyed a 93% sell-through rate by lot; one dinner service set in the catalog, previously used by King George III of England, is heading to the Louvre. Among the items that failed to find a bidder: a 1622 painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. 

Find the complete auction results and further information by visiting Christie’s.

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