LA GAZETTE DROUOT | AUCTIONS | AUCTION RESULTS IN PARIS AND THE ÎLE-DE-FRANCE REGION

Alongside Riesener—a champion of classicism with his chest of drawers—Ham Nghi set a world record for a pastel painting created during his exile in Algeria.
More than 80% of the lots were sold, and many art lovers made the trip to see this chest of drawers marked “Jean-Henri Riesener” (see Gazette No. 23, page 19). Commissioned for the Countess of Angiviller at the Château de Rambouillet, it was purchased by a French buyer for €84,500, against a high estimate of 25,000.
Vietnamese painting was also in the spotlight, with similar enthusiasm evident in the €92,300 bid for *Mother and Children* (23.5 x 22.5 cm as seen—see Gazette No. 24, page 65), an ink-and-color-on-silk work created in 1958 by Mai-Thu (1906–1980) and highlighted by a frame made by the artist. Ham Nghi, the eighth emperor of the Nguyen dynasty who became a painter, set a world record of 85,800 € for a pastel estimated at a maximum of 4,000,
depicting the Route de Mustapha in Algiers in 1925 (detail reproduced on the right-hand page). The previous highest price for the “Prince of Annam,” €37,800, was held by his first known work, the oil painting *Landscape (El Biar, Algeria)*, November 9, 1891 (27 x 35 cm), sold in 2021 at Kâ-Mondo (source: Artprice). In 1885, less than a year after ascending to the throne, the 14-year-old emperor was forced to flee in the face of French troops responding to the uprising launched by the regents Tôn That Thuyet and Nguyen Van Tuong. Captured at age 17, he was exiled to Algeria, where he began to paint fervently, appreciating the landscapes that lent themselves to contemplation and were tinged with a certain melancholy. Created more than thirty years after his arrival in Algiers, this ethereal pastel illustrates the poetry and mastery of his art, sensitively capturing the beauty of nature at twilight. An antique cast from Susse based on a model created in 1927 by Anne-Marie Profillet (1898–1939), the “Fighting Rooster” (25.5 x 27.5 x 11.3 cm) sold for five times its high estimate, at €32,950.

TUESDAY, JUNE 23, ROOM 4—HÔTEL DROUOT. NICOLAS NOUVELET, AUCTION AUCTIONER OVV.
Messrs. Romieux, Eyraud, Souksi-Fray Gallery.

Ham Nghi, known as Tu Xuan (1871–1944), Emperor
of Annam, Route de Mustapha in Algiers, 1925,
pastel on paper, signed and dated in
, 53 x 43.5 cm (view) (detail).
Sold for: €85,800