The inexhaustible Henri Petiet Collection

Every year, over the past twenty years, the French prints market has received an injection of excellent quality prints from the collection accumulated by Henri Marie Petiet (1894-1980). To date, thousands of prints have already been sold and the provenance is considered both historical and prestigious since Henri Petiet, who dealt in art in order to fuel his passion as a collector, became a world-renowned expert in the field of printmaking. In fact, via his excellent relations with a number of curators (Carl and Harold Joachim Schnewing in Chicago, Agnes Mongan at the Fogg Museum. Elizabeth Mongan, Eleanore Sayre in Boston, Adelyne Breeskin in Washington), dealers (George Keller) and collectors (Lessing Rosenwald, among others), he played a crucial role in getting printmaking accepted by the major US collections, both public and private.

When the great dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard died in 1939, Henri Petiet bought almost all his editions, including the famous Suite Vollard, a series of 100 etchings submitted by Picasso to his first dealer in exchange for two paintings, one by Cezanne and the other by Renoir. Some 310 complete sets of the Suite Vollard were printed from the 100 original plates, and several sets were acquired by Henri Petiet, one of which is now in the British Museum. Not content with the acquisition of the Vollard’s stock, Henri Petiet decided to pursue Vollard’s work by publishing artists like Marie Laurencin, Gromaire, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Boussingault and Pierre Dubreuil and accumulating cheap prints at auctions, aware that he would have to keep them for several years before trying to resell them.

By the end of his life Petiet had accumulated a massive collection of prints (all types) by artists like Pierre Bonnard, Paul Gauguin, Fernand Léger, Le Corbusier, Marie Laurencin, Matisse, Degas, Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Jean-Louis Boussingault, Mary Cassatt, Eugene Clairin, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Dufresne, A. Dunoyer de Segonzac, Maillol, Matisse, Pascin, Pissarro, Rouault, Roussel, Signac, Jacques Villon, Vlaminck, Odilon Redon… and many others. Practically all the great Modern artists are represented. For many years, the annual sale was organised by Piasa. Nowadays, the sales are entrusted to Ader and the latest sale on December 10 sold 325 lots.

Ader’s 10 December 2015 sale…
A substantial number of the sale’s estimates were well below market reality: a superb lithographic print on canvas by Pierre Bonnard (L’estampe et l’affiche [1897]) fetched €2,000 against an estimate of €750; a delicate engraving by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( Le Bois de l’Ermite [1858]) fetched €1,600 (estimated €450); another work by Corot, Les Paladins, went under the hammer for €1,900 (estimated €300); an Odalisque (1825) by Ingres sold for €2,600 against an estimate of €1,200; a lithographic stone accompanied by a Toulouse de Lautrec reprint (Les Vieilles Histoires) reached € 8,000 on an estimate of €4,500. In short, lots of prints fetched double, triple or even four times their estimates and there was a new record for George Daniel de Montfreid with a superb portrait of his friend Gauguin, announced at €850 and finally selling for €2,200. However, the sale’s overall result could have been better if its star lot, Renoir’s Chapeau épinglé, had fetched its asking price of €30,000. The work is one of Renoir’s most coveted prints (a 9-color lithograph from an edition of 200 by Ambroise Vollard). It seems collectors are much more impressed by Auguste Clot’s edition of 100: five years ago, one of them fetched €250,000 at Sotheby’s in Paris.

A prestigious provenance combined with some of the best signatures in Modern art does not necessarily guarantee success at any price on the Paris market; in fact, this type of sale represents a unique opportunity to acquire original multiples at relatively cheap prices. The sale also offered a wide range of prints by artists like Antoine-Louis Barye, Nicolas Toussaint Charlet, d’Honoré Daumier and Theodore Géricault for 100, 200, or 300 euros. In short, this major sale of Modern art prints perfectly illustrated the affordability of the much more discreet prints medium.