Art Market Magazine - Visit zone-secure.net
Art Market Magazine - Visit zone-secure.net
Art Market Magazine - Visit zone-secure.net
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THE MAGAZINE UPCOMING AUCTIONS<br />
HD<br />
25 March<br />
Kachinas from<br />
the Yves Berger collection<br />
All art lovers remember the first Yves Berger sale on 15 April 2002 as a real high point for Amerindian art. The sale at<br />
Drouot that day featured one of the very few collections dedicated to North American Indians, built up over nearly 40<br />
years by a true enthusiast. A major figure in French publishing who spent most of his career with Grasset, Yves Berger,<br />
himself a best-selling novelist who won the Médicis and Renaudot prizes, collected some fifty iconic pieces, mostly<br />
from before 1880. The dispersion was a success, totalling €405,000 in 44 lots. Ten years on, it's the turn of his Kachina<br />
doll collection, carefully preserved by Berger's wife, to wend its way to the sale room (Eve auction house). Like Emil<br />
Nolde and André Breton before him, Berger was interested in the aesthetic and poetic value of these so-called primitive<br />
objects. The dolls are based on masked dancers, and form part of children's religious education. Key items in this<br />
collection include these three pieces from before 1900, including the Pahi Ala kachina (€18,000/25,000) in the centre.<br />
The sale will continue with some Pre-Columbian pieces featured in a separate catalogue (around 180 lots). Worth<br />
noting: this large terracotta sculpture from Veracruz of a seated shaman with an expressive face (€50,000/60,000<br />
photo), and a rare piece of Aztec jewellery in gold alloy, from the former American collection of Fred Eisermann. This is<br />
an imperial relic of Moctezuma, the antepenultimate emperor of Pre-Columbian Mexico (€4,500/5,000).<br />
S. P-D<br />
36 GAZETTE DROUOT INTERNATIONAL I N° 23<br />
Kachina Mongwa (great horned<br />
owl Kachina), c. 1880, h. 22.5 cm.<br />
Estimate: €15,000/18,000.<br />
Pahi Ala (Three horned) Kachina,<br />
c. 1890, h. 36 cm.<br />
Estimate: €18,000/25,000.<br />
Proud Kachina, c.1890, h. 25 cm.<br />
Estimate €12,000/15,000.<br />
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