A pastel black chalk drawing by French artist Odilon Redon, “Face behind bars” of circa 1880, fetched 5 350 000 FF (US $ 781,021) (Not inclusive of buyer's premium) at Drouot on June 15th 2000.
This bid, pronounced by an anonymous American buyer, was a record price for Redon (1840-1916).
This work, measuring 64 x 56 cm only carried a pre-sale estimate of $ 100,000. Produced during Redon's Expressionist period, it came from the collection of Henri Petiet.
Redon was particularly interested in producing drawings in black, a colour which fascinated him as he considered as the most essential. In a conference he gave in Holland in 1913, he notably said : “we have to respect black as nothing can prostitute it… It is the agent of one's spirit more than any colour”. This drawing exhaled some strong mysterious force showing the face of a child with wide open eyes marked by some strong anguish behind bars, in a quite sinister, freaky, funeral and deranging atmosphere. Meanwhile, an ink drawing of 1928 by Henri Matisse titled “Odalisque assoupie au fauteuil turc” measuring 33 x 51 cm sold for 1,6 million FF ($ 233,575) (Inclusive of buyer's premium) while a Picasso ink drawing dated 1901 “Old woman muffled up in a blanket” measuring 16 x 11 cm went for 1 010 000 FF ($ 147,445). This sale of the Petiet collection totalled 19 950 000 FF ( $ 2,91 million) with 99% of lots sold.
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