An erotic Poussin painting and an early version of the Statue of Liberty: our pick of the November sales

Nicolas Poussin's Vénus Épiée par Deux Satyres (around 1626)
Photo: Studio Sébert; courtesy Artcento
Nicolas Poussin, Vénus Épiée par Deux Satyres (around 1626)
Tableaux Anciens (Ancient and Modern pictures), Ader, Paris, 26 November
Estimate: €800,000 to €1m
This early work by Nicholas Poussin was initially rejected by experts, in part because of its racy subject matter. The eroticism and looming violence in the painting’s depiction of a nude nymph being disturbed by satyrs seemed too far removed from the classical, detached style of Poussin’s later work, according to the Ader auction house. “We couldn’t imagine that Poussin would have painted a subject like this in 1626,” the art historian and dealer Eric Turquin said in a statement. Once in the collection of Paul Jamot,a chief curator at the Musée du Louvre and a Poussin specialist, later experts did not believe the work was genuine. Since being sold in 1943, it has remained in private hands. Researchers reconsidered it after the publication in 2017 of an article about Poussin’s other erotic paintings from around this time, and it will be included in the upcoming Poussin catalogue raisonné by Pierre Rosenberg.
Courtesy Artcurial
Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, Maquette pour la Statue de la Liberté (1870s)
Old Master and 19th Century, Artcurial, Paris, 26 November
Estimate: €300,000 to €500,000
A model of the famous French-made symbol of the US is hitting the auction block in Paris. The terracotta maquette is an earlier version of Liberty Enlightening the World, better known as the Statue of Liberty. The work was gifted by the sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the Statue of Liberty’s designer, to the author and abolitionist Édouard Laboulaye, who originated the idea of France giving the statue to the US. This version differs slightly from the statue in New York harbour—instead of holding a tablet referencing the Declaration of Independence, the maquette holds in its hands a broken chain that represents the end of slavery in the US. The figure also stands with her left leg forward and left arm lowered, unlike the Statue of Liberty’s final version. Fundraising to construct the monument and its pedestal took more than 20 years. Laboulaye died in 1883, three years before the project was completed. The model has remained in the posession of Laboulaye’s family until now, according to Artcurial.
Courtesy Bonhams
Norman Rockwell, A Scout is Loyal (1940)
American Art Sale, Bonhams, New York, 19 November
Estimate:$3m to $5m
It is hard to imagine a more bizarrely American painting. Norman Rockwell portrayed the spirits of two of the US’s most beloved presidents, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington—along with the Bill of Rights and a bald eagle—looking over the shoulder of a triumphant-looking Boy Scout in uniform. The name of the work is borrowed from the second principle of being a Boy Scout, and it was one of the hundreds of covers Rockwell created for Boys' Life to offer readers some all-American nostalgia and comfort during wartime. While A Scout is Loyal was completed in 1940, it wasn’t published until two years later, after the US entered the Second World War in the wake of the attacks on Pearl Harbour.
Courtesy Lyon & Turnbull
Dorothy Bohm, Cordoba, Spain (around 1950s)
Modern Made, Lyon & Turnbull, London, 1 November
Estimate: £1,000 to £1,500
This signed photograph by Dorothy Bohm is from the late British photographer’s own collection, and was hung in her long-time Hampstead home, according to Lyon & Turnbull. Bohm was born in 1924 in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) to a Jewish family that later relocated to Lithuania. In 1939, as Nazi Germany began its takeover of Europe and ramped up its persecution of Jews, Bohm’s family sent her to an English boarding school. As she boarded the train, Bohm’s father gave her a Leica camera as a parting gift. She would not see her parents again until two decades later. Bohm later said the medium of photography offered her a sense of stability that she found comforting: “A photograph fulfils my deep need to stop things from disappearing,” she told The Times of Israel in 2016. As an adult, Bohm took photographs all over the world. Cordoba, Spain shows a lamp-lit alley in the Andalusian city, and is among Bohm’s most well-known images.

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