Public Exhibition Opens May 4                                                         

Auction Date: May 14

New York- Bonhams New York upcoming sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on May 14 is led by Marino Marini’s Studio per Miracolo, an exceptionally rare example of the artist’s important and enduring theme: the horse and rider (estimate: $500,000-700,000).

Conceived and cast in 1953-54 during the artist’s lifetime, this work is remarkable for its dramatic depiction of a precise and critical moment in which the horse has fallen and its rider is thrown backward. Throughout his career, Marini's equestrian sculptures grew increasingly stylized and abstract, and Studio per Miracolo is a powerful reflection of the artist's dramatic view of the world. Other casts from the Studio per Miracolo edition reside in the permanent collections of the Marino Marini Museum in Florence and the Kunstmuseum Winterthur in Switzerland. This sculpture was first owned by Walter Fontana (1919-1992), an Italian Senator and esteemed art collector who acquired the piece directly from Marini in the 1970s.

Another highlight of the sale is Alfred Sisley’s Péniches sur le Loing, a celebration of the picturesque charm of the Seine's riverbank (estimate: $500,000-700,000). Painted in 1896, Péniches sur le Loing ranks among the finest achievements of Sisley's mature oeuvre and features the river that captivated Sisley throughout the last decade of his life. The painting also is distinguished by its important early provenance; the first owner was Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, also known as Lord Berners (1883-1950), the bon vivant and eccentric British composer, painter, novelist and aesthete. While he is most well known as an accomplished painter and composer, he is remembered by many as the fictionalized character Lord Merlin in Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love.

Other top lots of the sale include Camille Pissarro’s Paysage d'Hiver (recto); Basse-cour avec poules et canards (verso), a charming double-sided painting of the rural lifestyle in Pontoise (estimate: $600,000-800,000); Homme à la guitare, a monumental bronze sculpture by Jacques Lipchitz conceived and cast at the summit of Lipchitz's Cubist exploration (estimate: $300,000-500,000); Pablo Picasso’s Tête d’homme et tête de femme, an exemplary work from Picasso's late period that exudes the frenetic energy of the artist's final years (estimate: $320,000-550,000); and Eugène Boudin’s Caudebec-en-Caux, Bateaux sur la Seine, a resplendent example of Boudin’s exploration of the evanescent properties of water and sky (estimate: $150,000-250,000).

Sale: Impressionist and Modern Art  

Location: 580 Madison Avenue, New York

Auction Date: May 14  

Specialist: Caitlyn Pickens

For a full list of forthcoming auctions, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments, please visit bonhams.com.