PARIS.- Christie’s unveils another major work in its Avant-Garde(s) Including Thinking Italian auction: the culmination of a series of auctions timed to coincide with Art Basel Paris on 18 October. Christie’s presents the exceptional rediscovery of a surrealist work by Francis Picabia, which will be auctioned alongside a rare oil painting by Alberto Giacometti (Buste sur la selle de l’atelier, €2-3 million) and an emblematic work by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Jane Avril au Divan Japonais, €2.5-3.5 million). Myrte is a perfect example of Picabia’s Transparency series, the key series produced by the artist between 1927 and 1932, and has been kept in the same European collection since the 1970s. Exhibited in Paris in 1928, the work was only ever seen by the public at the Francis Picabia, Mezzo Secolo di Avanguardia exhibition in Turin in 1974. It is estimated at €1 million to €1.5 million.

An innovative series Executed around 1928, Myrte is a captivating example of Francis Picabia’s renowned Transparency series, famous for the theatrical superimposition of images which Picabia had already experimented with in his films. Through these works, Francis Picabia seeks to stimulate the imagination with a surreal interweaving of images. Inspired by a real-life revelation in a café in Marseille, Myrte immerses the viewer into a sensual, hallucinatory dream. The work thereby defies all traditional interpretations of painting.

A tribute to classical art

Antiquity is of particular importance in the Transparency series. Groups of classical sculptures are often used as a basis for the composition. Myrte is a clear evocation of Botticelli’s female figures. The faces, taken from his Madonnas as well as from pagan figures, create a mysterious, dreamlike atmosphere. Myrte is therefore a fusion of past and present, of the sacred and of the secular, defying the artistic conventions of the time while paying homage to the masters of the Italian Renaissance.