LONDON.- Christie’s will present Tamara de Lempicka’s Portrait du Docteur Boucard (1928; estimate: £5,000,000-8,000,000) as a major highlight of its 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 5 March 2025. Coming from an important private collection, the painting was commissioned from Lempicka by the sitter himself, Doctor Boucard – a prominent art collector and key patron of the artist - and has not been seen on the market in the past forty years.
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A striking celebration of scientific achievement and artistic mastery, Tamara de Lempicka’s Portrait du Docteur Boucard captures the pioneering medical scientist Pierre Boucard in a moment of dynamic brilliance. An esteemed bacteriologist, Boucard revolutionised pharmaceutical science with the 1907 invention of Lactéol, a probiotic that laid the foundation for modern gut health research which is still in use today.
Lempicka’s talent for blending personal identity with broader social and historical themes established her as one of the foremost portraitists of the 20th century. Bathed in a dramatic beam of light, Boucard turns toward the glow, one hand resting on his microscope, the other gripping a glass test tube. The stark Cubist backdrop and striking chiaroscuro create a dynamic tension, capturing both the precision of scientific inquiry and the refinement of modern portraiture. With her signature smooth, polished finish and sculptural precision, Lempicka portrays Boucard as both an esteemed scientist and a man of distinction. His white trench coat, reminiscent of a laboratory coat, suggests a cinematic transformation. His upturned collar, pearl-accented tie, and sharply defined features convey both intellectual authority and cosmopolitan charm. Looking away with quiet confidence, Boucard, like many of Lempicka’s subjects, exudes the sophistication and ambition of the haute société to which he belonged.
Lempicka’s rise in the art world was meteoric. Having fled Russia during the revolution, she settled in Paris in 1918 and trained under the influential Maurice Denis and André Lhote, whose Cubist style left a lasting imprint on her work. By the mid-1920s, she had become the most sought-after portraitist among Europe’s elite, attracting commissions from Milan’s high society following her successful 1925 solo exhibition at Bottega di Poesia. The late 1920s marked a golden era for the artist, cementing her reputation as the foremost female artist of les années folles, the glamorous, high-energy years between the World Wars. With Boucard’s generous financial support, she established a state-of-the-art studio on Rue Méchain in Paris, designed by modernist architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. This space became both a creative sanctuary and a glamorous social hub, where Lempicka hosted fashionable gatherings that further solidified her image as an artist at the forefront of modernity.
Giovanna Bertazzoni, Chairman, Christie’s, Europe: “Lempicka’s Portrait du Docteur Boucard is a striking blend of modernity and individuality, demonstrating her ability to weave personal identity with the scientific and cultural ambitions of her time. The painting radiates vitality, offering a remarkably subtle yet profound psychological study of modern man. The appearance of Portrait du Docteur Boucard at auction is made all the more timely and significant by the fact it coincides with the closing of the first major U.S. retrospective of her work, at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. This sensational exhibition – co-curated by Furio Rinaldi and Gioia Mori - will soon travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, opening on 9 March. It was celebrated by the global press, and attended by record crowds – a seal of the ‘Lempicka-mania’ that has seized connoisseurs and amateurs in the most recent years. We are delighted to present this exceptional work in our 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 5 March.”
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