June 20, Arts Classiques & Civilisations

A Auctie's auction house is honored to present for sale on June 20 a selection of masterpieces and curiosities of classical art from around the world at Hôtel Drouot.

From Renaissance Italy to twentieth-century Vietnamese workshops and from Haussmannian Paris to the tumult of the North Seas, each lot in this sale is dedicated to telling a singular story.

In this selection, a rare Urbino majolica bowl illustrates the tragic tale of Pyramus and Thisbe after Ovid, and alone embodies the narrative taste and pictorial elegance of sixteenth-century Italy.

Facing it, Louis Bretez's map of Paris, engraved under the orders of Turgot in 1739, offers another way of telling the story of the world, which this time becomes more real, more urban, and is mapped in breathtaking detail.

Further on, Nuguyen Tuong Lan, from the Hanoi school, takes us to 1930s Asia, where modernity and tradition meet. The delicacy of this painting on silk is a reminder of the uniqueness of ancestral Vietnamese techniques.

The imperial order of Kim Khanh, in chased gold, and the Kachan Mortachem carpet (Iran) complete this immersion in the arts of the East, between symbolic refinement and technical virtuosity.

On the European art side, a cookie bust after Carrier-Belleuse celebrates autumn with grace, and an oil on canvas by Antoine Blanchard evokes the bustling Paris of 1900, its grand boulevards and theater scenes.

Seascapes are not to be outdone, with a tormented depiction attributed to Simon de Vliger, where five ships battle the elements, and one by Eugène Isabey, painter of the imperial navy under the First Empire.

Finally, a 1973 Selmer Mark VI saxophone just begs to replay mythical jazz tunes.