A group of objects from the recently-closed Mougins Museum of Classical Artwork within the south of France—together with what has been described because the world’s largest privately-owned assortment of historic arms and armour—is estimated to convey £22m at Christie’s over the course of a 12 months because the personal establishment shifts focus to develop into the primary museum in Europe devoted to ladies artists.
In August, founder and proprietor Christian Levett, a former commodities dealer, introduced plans to briefly shut the museum after 12 years to be able to rebrand it because the Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins (FAMM) and to change out the prevailing assortment of largely classical artwork to work by ladies artists, which Levett has targeted on buying over the previous few years.
Christie’s will public sale a lot of Levett’s assortment as soon as held within the Mougins museum throughout six gross sales in London and New York, together with a two-part, trans-Atlantic public sale devoted to historic arms and armour. Levett says he determined to promote a lot of the works beforehand on show on the museum partly out of a need to see them proceed to be obtainable for the general public.
This marble group statue of Bacchus, Pan and Eros from across the third century AD may promote for as a lot as £500,000 in December. Courtesy Christie’s
“The classical artwork assortment would have ended up in storage, which is a little bit of a disgrace for a lot of items which have now been on show publicly for 12 years,” Levett says. “It is not a set that you would be able to simply merely put again in storage and overlook about, it actually must be seen. Hopefully quite a lot of the patrons will likely be establishments and museums.”
The auctions will start with a sale of roughly 65 tons at Christie’s London in December. Because the Mougins museum ceaselessly paired historic artefacts with extra modern work that featured comparable inspirations or design parts, the sale spans 1000’s of years. The public sale will embody a Roman marble male torso from in regards to the first century BC that’s anticipated to fetch between £250,000 and £350,000, together with Damien Hirst’s The Severed Head of Medusa (2013), the second of an version of three with a £500,000 to £700,000 estimate. The Medusa sculpture was featured in Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable present that ran parallel to the 2017 Venice Biennale.
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Damien Hirst’s The Severed Head of Medusa (2013) © Mougins Museum of Classical Artwork
“Folks overlook that if you have a look at a Roman marble for instance, you’re looking at one thing that any person’s sculpted, in addition to a chunk of historical past. Folks have a tendency to take a look at antiquities as items of historical past, however they’re additionally artworks,” Levett says. “Even with a number of the arms and armour, they’ve an artistry to them. So to me it was the final word to gather and personal these sorts of historic and extremely, superbly made items.”
In January 2024, Christie’s New York will host the primary public sale devoted to Levett’s armour assortment, a uncommon sale to be held in North America. Levett stated the public sale will embody considered one of his favorite items of armoury, the Guttmann Mouse helmet, believed thus far from the late second century. The helmet options the designs of two small mice climbing up the again towards what Levett says are depictions of spherical loaves of bread, which Roman troopers ate whereas marching. The helmet, which was on mortgage to the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York for 5 years, is estimated to promote for between $1m and $1.5m.
Two extra in-person auctions will observe in late 2024: a sale of classical artwork in New York in October, and an arms and armour sale scheduled for London in December. Two on-line gross sales are additionally deliberate for October and December, respectively, in accordance with Christie’s.
Levett will use the £22m the gathering is predicted to fetch over the course of a 12 months for purchasing extra works by ladies artists for the retooled museum in Mougins, which is tentatively scheduled to open in June 2024, he says. His assortment already contains works by artists like Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin and Cecily Brown. Levett says he’s interested by increasing his assortment of French Impressionism and Surrealism.
“I nonetheless love antiquities and classical artworks,” Levettsays. “It’s a bittersweet second to vary the museum round, however I simply cannot depart such an necessary assortment in storage. It will be form of sacrilege.”