Sunday 28 June 2015

Henry Mirande (plus a 20th century "17th century Dutch" work)

Swan, Uk auctioneer, sells on 2 July 2015 an "Oil on canvas". Which isn't much of a description, obviously. No estimate either...

Luckily they provide decent images, which allow to find the artist: Henry (or Henri) Mirande (1877-1955), French modernist (expressionist) painter and illustrator, relatively famous around the time of his death but since largely forgotten, also because not many of his works seem to come on the market. The bulk of his work was in illustration for the many French magazines of the first half of the 20th century, including the more naughty ones, with many appearances in "Le Rire" and "Le Pêle-Mêle". His style in these illustrations is quite different from his usually rather sombre paintings. I'll not put further illustrations here, as the copyright status on his work isn't clear to me (the benefit of sticking to long dead artists!), but you can appreciate some of his wonderful illustrations here.

His paintings fetched $1,000 to $2,000 in the 1980s, and since then I could only find traces of one sold painting, which fetched some 2,000 Euro in 2007. I guess the one for sale here (of unknown size) should be worth at least the same.

At the same auction you can buy a "17th century Dutch oil on panel", estimated £200 to £300.

The image makes it clear that this isn't a 17th century work though, and the second image of the "indistinctly signed" signature shows it to be the work of Adrianos Marijnissen (1899-?), whose paintings of Winter in the Netherlands fetch usually around £1,000. A bit too much in my view, but if you like retro-sentimentalism then it may be a good buy. If you want a genuine 17th century painting though, better steer clear.

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