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THE MAGAZINE UPCOMING AUCTIONS
22/23 March
The world
of Barbier-Mueller
The early bird catches the worm, as the saying goes…
And there is no doubt that the Barbier-Muellers have
followed it to the letter. First of all in this family saga,
there was Josef Mueller, the enthusiast (1887-1977). In
1906, when visiting a friend, the young man discovered
a Picasso from the Rose period. It was a revelation.
The next year he bought his first work with the
family inheritance: a large painting by Ferdinand
Hodler. He was twenty. Josef Mueller then went to
Ambroise Vollard in Paris, with the intention of buying
a Cézanne. He achieved his ambition three months
later, becoming the joyful owner of "Portrait du jardinier
Vallier". By 1918, he owned six Matisses, four
Picassos, and eight Cézannes. Between 1930 and 1940,
the collection was further swelled with works by
Rouault, Derain, Léger and Ernst, which he kept at his
Swiss home in Soleure. These are now in Monique and
Flying duck, in ceramic with
brick red slip and white paint.
Tarascan culture. Tzintzuntzan, State of
Michoacan (Mexico), 1200-1521 AD.
H. 17.5 cm. Estimate: €1.5/2 M.
HD
Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller's house in Geneva. But his
passion didn't stop there. Every Saturday in Paris,
where he lived from 1918 to 1942, Josef Mueller went
to the flea market and filled two suitcases with African
objects, Cycladic idols and Pre-Columbian art, together
with a handful of objects from Oceania. "My father-inlaw
had an extraordinary mania for buying," says his
son-in-law, Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller. At Joself's death,
he and his wife Monique, Josef's only daughter, pared
down his Primitive art collections of 1,500 objects. We
can imagine the amazement of Jean Paul Barbier, a law
student in the early Fifties, when he discovered the
collection of modern paintings. "I was thunderstruck",
he says – still visibly filled with wonder. Seeing his
mounting interest, Josef Mueller offered to show his
son-in-law his "reserve". For this, picture a room in an
abandoned factory at Soleure filled with 2,000
ethnographic objects! "At that point, I starting
looking at things very seriously... and collecting."
And yet Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller (born in
Ceramic plate with painted orangey-brown,
black and mauve amphibian decoration, Conte
style, Gran Coclé region (Panama), 850-1000 AD.
Diam. 32 cm. Estimate: €20,000/25,000.