Sotheby’s Unveils Blaquier-Arrieta Collection Estimated at $450m

I recently wrote about signs of recovery in the auction market, asking how much they reflect renewed confidence and how much they depend on a handful of exceptional collections coming to market. This morning, Sotheby’s offered a case in point, unveiling one of the market’s worst-kept secrets: the Blaquier-Arrieta collection.

Artnet News first reported in August that Sotheby’s had secured the consignment, beating Christie’s to the punch by reportedly offering a substantial guarantee. Sotheby’s now estimates the group at around $450 million. The win comes after it lost out to its rival on the latest tranche of S.I. Newhouse’s collection, which raised a cool $631m in May, bringing Christie’s cumulative total for the collection to $1.05 billion.

The 12 impressionist, post-impressionist and modern works were assembled by the late Argentine collectors Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and Carlos Pedro Blaquier. Most have never been offered at auction. Highlights are on show at Sotheby’s New Bond Street headquarters from 30 September to 1 October, ahead of the sale in New York on 18 November.

Major collections have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to inject nitro into an auction season. Christie’s Rockefeller sales in 2018 generated $835.1m. Sotheby’s Macklowe collection brought in $922.2m across two sales in 2021 and 2022, while Paul Allen’s collection realised $1.62bn at Christie’s in November 2022. In May this year, Christie’s took $1.12bn across two auctions in a single night.

Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958) Nature morte à la cruche bleue, courtesy Sotheby's

The Blaquiers were based in Buenos Aires and bought much of their collection in London during the 1970s. Seven of the 12 works were acquired through Lefevre Gallery.

The family’s wealth came largely through Nelly’s inheritance from the Arrieta family, whose business interests centred on Ledesma, a major Argentine sugar and agroindustrial company. Carlos Pedro Blaquier ran Ledesma from 1970 until 2013, overseeing substantial growth in its sugar, paper and alcohol businesses.

In 2012, Blaquier was charged over his alleged role in kidnappings during Argentina’s military dictatorship in 1976. He denied wrongdoing and died in 2023 without standing trial.

Nelly was a significant figure in Argentina’s cultural life. She became involved with the Asociación Amigos del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires during the 1960s and served as its president from 1977 to 2011.

One of the collection’s headliners is Van Gogh’s Châtaigniers en fleurs (1890), painted in Auvers around 24 May, during the final months of the artist’s life. Estimated at around $180m, it is one of only eight Auvers landscapes still in private hands, according to Sotheby’s. The Blaquiers acquired it from Wildenstein in 1975.

Cézanne’s Arlequin (1888–90) is estimated at around $120m. Sotheby’s says it is the only work from the artist’s four-painting Harlequin series still in private hands. Together, the two works account for roughly two-thirds of the collection’s overall estimate.

‘There was a time when you could walk into a top gallery in London or New York and, over a few years, build something of real museum quality,’ says Simon Shaw, Sotheby’s senior adviser in Impressionist and Modern Art, in the announcement. ‘You simply can’t do that now, at any price. What strikes me most is that the Blaquier-Arrieta collection doesn’t feel like a private collection at all. It feels like a small museum – a miniature Musée d’Orsay, now opening its doors for the very first time.’

Paul Gauguin. Fleurs dans une coupe (Flowers in a Bowl) ( 1899–1901), courtesy Sotheby's

Arlequin passed through the hands of dealers including Ambroise Vollard, Paul Durand-Ruel and Paul Rosenberg, before reaching Wildenstein Galleries and later Lefevre Gallery, where the Blaquiers bought it during the 1970s. It was shown at the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1907 and subsequently exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and Tate.

‘These are two of the finest works either artist made, painted within a few years of each other, and unseen for half a century,’ says Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s vice chairman and head of Impressionist and Modern Art, Americas, in the announcement. ‘For a generation that has known these paintings only through the pages of catalogues raisonnés, they have become almost mythical. To offer either one would be a career highlight. To offer both, in a single sale, is something truly extraordinary.’

Following Van Gogh’s death, Châtaigniers en fleurs passed to his brother Theo and then to Theo’s widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, and their son Vincent Willem. It subsequently belonged to Samuel Fischer, George ‘Buddy’ Gard de Sylva and Harriet Harris-Jonas.

The remaining ten works include Renoir’s En Canot (Jeune fille à la barque) (1877), estimated at $25m to $35m, and Pissarro’s La Place du Théâtre-Français et l’avenue de l’Opéra, soleil d’après-midi en hiver (1898), estimated at $30m to $40m. There’s also Degas’s pastel Avant la course (c. 1893), estimated at $20m to $30m, alongside works by Monet, Gauguin, Sisley, Derain, Toulouse-Lautrec and Vlaminck, and a second Pissarro. Sotheby’s estimates exclude buyer’s premium and overhead premium.

Sotheby’s won the consignment despite Christie’s longstanding relationship with the Blaquier family. Its rival handled Van Gogh’s Le Zouave (1888), which reportedly fetched around $190m in a private auction, according to Artnet News, and sold two works by Paul Signac from the collection last November. Artnet also reported that Christie’s secured the family’s collection of silver, estimated at $15m to $20m and scheduled for sale in London in December.

Sotheby’s reported decision to offer a substantial guarantee shows how fiercely the two houses are competing for these collections. A collection like this brings together an increasingly rare concentration of works and a compelling narrative. If anything can get the paddles up, this should.