The Garden Party Sale at the Château de Villandry: An Anthology from the 17th to the 20th century

For the 37th Garden Party, the Rouillac family (father and son) is relocating to the Château de Villandry. From a chest of drawers attributed to Sageot to Jean-François Jonvelle’s photographic collection, not forgetting Italian Baroque sculpture, this eclectic program will pique everyone’s curiosity.

The Château de Villandry, a landmark Renaissance estate in the Loire Valley, provides the perfect backdrop for this event, especially as its owner Henri Carvallo is well acquainted with auctioneers Aymeric and Philippe Rouillac, who have often advised him on purchases to decorate the property. The 441 lots to be sold over the two days should delight this passionate family of collectors, who are particularly fond of antique furniture. While metal marquetry in brass and tortoiseshell was pioneered by André-Charles Boulle, it was also masterfully employed by Nicolas Sageot, who was awarded the title of Master in 1706 and set up as a free-lance worker in the Grande-Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, to whom a commode (chest of drawers) known as “The Birth of Venus” is attributed. Estimated at €50,000/70,000, until today this commode has remained with the descendants of Ernest Pariset (1826-1912), one of Lyon’s most prominent silk manufacturers and historians of his time, and son of André-Aimé Pariset, Governor of French Guyana and a key player in the abolition of slavery. Usually, we present furniture in its original condition, but this time, this chest of drawers were recently restored,” explains Aymeric Rouillac. However, it was made according to the rules of the art at Château de Frétay by specialist Marie-Hélène Poisson, well known in the Vendôme region. The profusion of brass decoration on a tortoiseshell background is remarkable, also the result of the work of marker Toussaint Devoy (died 1753), a benchmark in his field at the time, who also supplied panels to Jean-Alexandre Oppenordt. The extremely rare top depicts the Birth of Venus. This iconography can be found on another piece of furniture stamped by Nicolas Sageot, formerly in the collections of the Earl of Lincoln, Clumber Park (sold at Christie’s on December 16, 1999, under no. 50). The commedia dell’arte-themed side decorations echo those of another commode in the Wallace Collection, London (F408). These grotesque motifs plunge us into the heart of the court of Louis XIV and the work of the ornamentalist Jean Berain (1640-1711).

The 19^th Century, from the Empire to Rodin

Listed at €5,000/7,000, the portrait of Bonaparte at the Pont d’Arcole by an artist of the French school of the first half of the 19^th century, based on the work of Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, will open a chapter dedicated to the French Emperor, which will continue with several plates from imperial services. €10,000/15,000 are expected for each of the two lots of Sèvres hard porcelain “à monter” plates, complements to Napoleon I‘s particular service, known as “des quartiers généraux”, which was delivered in 1810 to the Tuileries Palace for the sovereign’s wedding, then completed over the following years. These pieces bear marks indicating the dates December 5, 1811, for one, and March 13, 1812, for another. From this famous martial decoration – the frieze of chrome-green swords – let’s move on to the refined gold frieze known as “capraire” on four plates intended for Napoleon I’s service at the Chateau de Rambouillet, from 1808, in Sèvres hard porcelain, estimated at €6,000/8,000. After the attacks of the “Beast of Gévaudan” in 1764 and 1767, the age old fear of the “wolf” was perpetuated for a long time in France. In the 19^th century, it was illustrated by Jacques Raymond Brascassat’s painting presented at the 1838 Salon (€15,000/20,000). Strikingly realistic, this animal painting was hailed in its day for its depiction of creatures other than horses! But this century offers many facets, evoked through a variety of lots: from a chapel by Poussielgue-Rusand valued at €70,000/90,000 to a rare marble by Auguste Rodin, Le Désespoir, likely to fetch €500,000/700,000 (see cover of this issue). At a time when the Church was seeking to win back its faithful, the manufacture of religious goldsmiths was in full swing, and Placide Poussielgue-Rusand (1824-1889) was one of the key players.This impressive gilt chapel, decorated in enamel with scenes from the Old Testament and cabochons of faux gems, includes a monstrance, a paten, a ciborium, a standing custode, two cruets and their trays. It is modeled on the chapel for the “Coronation of Monseigneur de Dreux-Brézé at Notre-Dame de Paris on April 14, 1850”, a major work that played a major role in the spread of the Neo-Gothic style at the time.

From Lalique to Jonvelle

The end of the 19^th century saw the full expression of nature in works of art, starting with René Lalique‘s Art Nouveau jewelry creations. For example, a set of three butterfly motifs, an ephemeral and poetic animal, with wings in plique-à-jour polychrome enamel—a medieval technique that the goldsmith and jeweler revisited to create boldly modern pieces—could seduce at €60,000/80,000. Impressionist painters, for their part, gave free rein to their emotions in front of the landscape, such as Gustave Loiseau in Glaçons sur l’Oise (1914), a painting that passed through the Durand Ruel Gallery and came from the estate of Dr. Armand Maurin, in Paris. Having settled in Pontoise in 1904, the painter focused his work on the cycle of the seasons, using views of the Hermitage neighborhood and its bridge, as in this composition. Expect to pay €25,000/30,000 for this variation on the winter theme, similar to Bords de la Garonne by Henri Martin, a painting acquired at the Palais Galliera sale on December 8, 1973 (€30,000/40,000). Presented at the 1906 Salon des Artistes Français, this work is one of the preparatory studies for the famous set of thirteen canvases produced between 1903 and 1906 by the painter from the Southwest of France for the Salle des Pas Perdus in Toulouse’s Capitole building. More precisely, this is a sketch for the composition of an evening stroll along the river. The poets, writers and politicians do not appear here, as the painter concentrates on this superb panorama, flooded with intense light that overpowers the architecture and creates reflections in the water. Between poetry and provocation, the final word will go to Jean-François Jonvelle, whose entire photographic collection will be offered for sale, along with the rights to it. The hammer price will be €50,000 for the collection, which includes hundreds of thousands of negatives in 44 boxes spanning his entire career, tens of thousands of contact sheets in Ilford and Kodak boxes, dozens of plates of his best shots and exhibition prints. From the 1960s until his sudden death in 2022, Jonvelle was considered the “photographer-poet of fashion”. Working for leading magazines, he captured the portraits of the greatest actresses of his time, from Nathalie Baye to Cécile de France and Agnès Jaoui, often in velvety black and white, with delicacy and sensuality. Covering Yves Saint Laurent’s autumn-winter season in 1966-1967, he also photographed the 1981 advertising campaign for the poster company Avenir, which revolutionized the sector with its use of teasing and its slogans “Le 2 septembre j’enlève le haut” (“September 2, I take off the top“), then “Le 4 septembre, j’enlève le bas” (September 4, I take off the bottom). Model Myriam Szabo posed nude in the final poster of this scandalous campaign.

TWO MYSTERIOUS FACES
Hailing from a chateau in the Loire Valley, this pair of remarkably expressive busts is the work of a 17^th century Roman sculptor. Bronzes from the high Baroque period.

While it was the Renaissance that brought bronze back into fashion in Italy, the 17^th century provided the technique with its finest masterpieces, prized today by collectors. Of exceptional quality, this pair of never-before-seen busts, which have been preserved for over a century in a Loire château, is a perfect illustration. Cast, as they should be, in lost wax—a process that systematically destroys the mold—these portraits of philosophers reveal extreme mastery: no reparure or casting defects, cold reworking of surgical precision… Each chiseling gives full scope to the expressiveness of the features, even marking the irises with deeply incised semicircles. “The elegance and sophistication of this ‘cold’ work are particularly perceptible in the subtle amati of the transition between the smooth appearance of the skin tones and the deep cuts of the beard and hair,” adds expert Élodie Jeannest. These expressive features and hair styles are strong markers of Baroque art, and more specifically of 17^th century Italian art. Previously attributed to Pierre Puget of Toulon, these works were excluded from his catalog raisonné, published in 2023 by Klaus Herding. Today, the attribution is to a Roman artist who assimilated the work of Bernini and l’Algarde. Still a mystery, our sculptor is also said to be the author of two similar pairs, in the collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg respectively. As part of the Counter-Reformation in Rome, the pontifical administration launched major construction projects. This intense activity was mirrored by the civil works commissioned by aristocratic families. Artists often worked for both, but sometimes also for the restoration of antique works, as in the case of Alessandro Algardi, Ippolito Buzzi and Giovanni Antonio Mari. Since these pieces had been an infinite source of inspiration since the Renaissance, they provided models of idealized realism, including bust portraits of thinkers and emperors. The Young Philosopher, for example, has a touch of Caracalla in his face, while the more mature Antisthenes is reminiscent of the founder of the Greek Cynic school. But, turned towards each other, they seem to respond to each other, the older one passing on his knowledge to the younger, according to the Platonic theory in vogue at the time, thus preserving moral virtues.

Worth Knowing
37^th Garden Party Sale
Château de Villandry
Sunday, June 8 and Monday, June 9, 2025
Rouillac OVV. Mme Fligny, cabinets de Bayser,
Lacroix – Jeannest, Portier et Associés, Turquin & Associés,
MM. Froissart, de Villelume, Veyssière.

37th GARDEN PARTY SALE – I

Sunday 08 June 2025 – 14:00 (CEST) – Live

Château de Villandry, 3, rue Principale – 37510 Villandry

Rouillac

Info and sales conditions

Catalogue