KCR Winter 2025 2026 Mag V3 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 27
MASTERPIECE OF FRENCH REALISM DISCOVERED
IN UK AFTER HALF A CENTURY
Olympia Auctions is thrilled to announce the discovery of a watercolour
by revered French realist painter Léon Bonvin (1834–1866), recognised
today as a key 昀椀gure in French Realist painting. Painted in 1865 in the
昀椀nal year of the artist’s short life, its existence was previously unknown.
It can now be added to the nineteen recorded works that Bonvin painted
that year (only three of which remain in private hands) and is just the
117th work of which we now know the whereabouts, the vast majority
of which are held in museum collections around the world. In all it is
believed Bonvin completed less than 150 works in total. The appearance
of this work is therefore an exciting moment and an important addition
to the artist’s small, but highly signi昀椀cant corpus of work.
Discovered in a family’s private collection in North London, the
watercolour, titled Still Life with Hollyhocks, Corn昀氀owers, Poppies,
Willows and Butter昀氀ies at the Edge of a Wood dates from 1865. The year
marked both an extraordinary 昀氀owering in Bonvin’s talent and presaged
his tragic death at the age of just 31 years old in January 1866.
Commenting on the discovery, Art Specialist at Olympia Auctions,
Adrian Biddell said: “The discovery of this unmistakable work, which is
signed and dated by the artist, is a very signi昀椀cant addition to the artist’s
oeuvre. It had been purchased in 1969 from the Gomshall Gallery in
Surrey. However, following this, the work slipped from scholarly
attention and had been relegated to a bedroom wall, poorly framed and
obscured beneath dull glass. When I was sent an image of it, I wasn’t
sure if it was just a reproduction, but I got round there pronto!” The
work has been hailed as a “great example” by one of the leading scholars
responsible for the recent catalogue raisonné on Bonvin’s work,
(compiled before this discovery), its re-emergence adding to our
understanding of Bonvin’s late period.
Interest in Léon Bonvin has grown considerably in recent years
resulting in a 2022 retrospective at the Fondation Custodia in Paris,
curated by the late Ger Luijten and Gabriel Weisberg. The exhibition
assembled nearly half of the artist’s entire recorded output,
accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue raisonné by French art
historian and curator, Maud Guichané.
The discovery of this work has thrilled scholars, who regard it as a
moment of great cultural and academic signi昀椀cance, especially as it
was discovered inadvertently in a private collection, as the majority
of Bonvin’s work are held in major institutional collections, including
the Louvre, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, the Morgan Library
in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Cleveland
Museum of Art. The emergence of this watercolour brings to light one of
the very few Bonvin works remaining in private hands.
About Bonvin
Bonvin was born in Vaugirard, then a rural village just outside Paris, the
youngest of nine children from his father’s second marriage.
Encouraged by his much older half-brother, the painter François Bonvin
(1817-1887), he studied brie昀氀y at the Ecole Bachelier, now the Ecole
Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. At the Ecole he absorbed the
renewed mid-nineteenth-century fascination with still life painting and
particularly the legacy of Chardin. Natural shyness and the family’s
modest circumstances shaped his life profoundly. After the death of his
father, he became the innkeeper and wine merchant of the family inn,
the Bonvin de Bourgogne. A destination for artists, writers and actors
from Paris as well as local trade, Bovin was known to provide musical
entertainment for guests on a reed organ. Early on he drew the interior
of the inn, but from the early 1860s he began painting outdoors, almost
exclusively in watercolour (oil paint was too expensive), and directly
from nature with the eye of a botanist.
His works are small in scale, yet monumental in feeling, capturing
昀氀owers, plants and rural details with extraordinary accuracy and
sensitivity. The discovered watercolour displays all of the qualities that
have made Bonvin’s work cherished by art collectors and experts. With
patient observation he records hollyhocks, poppies, corn昀氀owers, butter昀氀ies and the shadows of a willow tree, while in the background a solitary
labourer bends to his work, dwarfed by the quiet authority of the natural
world.
Bonvin’s artistic talent was recognised by many of his contemporaries,
yet 昀椀nancial hardship overwhelmed him. At the end of January 1866,
after failing to sell his latest works in Paris, he hanged himself in the
forest of Meudon at the age of just thirty-one, leaving behind a widow
and three small children. His death prompted an unprecedented wave
of support from the artistic community. Eighty-eight leading painters
and printmakers, including Courbet, Corot, Monet, Nadar, Daubigny,
Fantin-Latour, Breton and Jongkind, donated works to a sale at Drouot
in May 1866 to help his bereaved family. Their participation stands as
a remarkable testament to the high esteem in which the young Bonvin
was already held.
Adrian Biddell tells us: “The market has been playing catch up with
Bonvin’s work in recent years and particularly since the Fondation
Custodia exhibition in 2022. Against modest pre-sale estimates
comparable watercolours by Bonvin have achieved strong results at
auction, with a similar example selling for £75,000. Given the rarity
of works of this quality, widespread institutional interest, that so few
remain in private collections and the wonderful story of its discovery,
we anticipate considerable interest amongst collectors internationally.
As one of the leading experts has commented, this newly discovered
watercolour is an important addition to the work of an artist whose
small, fragile but supremely accomplished output resonates profoundly
with audiences today.”
The watercolour will be o昀昀ered in Olympia Auctions Fine Paintings,
Works on Paper and Sculpture sale on December 10, 2025 with an
estimate of £10,000-£15,000 (lot 40).
Image credit: French realist painter Léon Bonvin (1834–1866),
image courtesy of Frits Lugt Collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris
