NEW YORK, NY.- On April 29, Christie’s will present the spring sale of 19th Century European Art in New York, which will feature works of exceptional quality by blue-chip artists of the period, including William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Léon-Augustin Lhermitte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Gustave Courbet. Comprised of 76 carefully selected lots that will appeal to discerning collectors, the sale will showcase a full spectrum of styles, including the Barbizon School, French Realism and Academic art, as well as Sporting art. Fresh-to-the-market works with notable provenance from prominent American collections, such as the Estate of Joan B. Kroc and the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, will be offered. The sale also features a number of exciting rediscoveries, including Bouguereau’s Rêverie sur le seuil, Courbet’s Le jardin de la Mère Toutain à Honfleur, and Corot’s Paysage aux bouleaux argentés.

Leading the sale is William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Les deux soeurs (estimate: $1,800,000-2,800,000), a beautifully rendered oil on canvas that depicts one of the artist’s favorite subjects. This large-scale museum-quality work portrays a charming scene in which a poised adolescent sitter looks calmly at the viewer while trying to handle her squirming toddler sister who sits on her lap. Painted at the height of Bouguereau’s success in 1877, when he was widely sought-after by the elite of the French capital, Les deux soeurs reminds the viewer of the inspiration the artist drew from the countryside of Brittany. The exceptional work is being consigned from a private American Collection and has not been offered at auction in over twenty years.

Rêverie sur le seuil, another quintessential work by Bouguereau, was virtually unknown to scholars until its recent rediscovery (estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000). The painting, which has been in the Heffelfinger family of Minneapolis for over one hundred years, evokes the ideals of youth, beauty, and purity, themes that were central to Bouguereau’s oeuvre throughout his career.

Influenced by the images of Bouguereau, The Little Goose Girl of Mézy is the most important single-figure painting by Léon Augustin Lhermitte (estimate: $400,000-600,000). Lhermitte placed the young girl in the foreground, giving her portrait-quality immediacy. She looks at the viewer quizzically, her industriousness apparent from the grain she holds, as well as her tattered work clothes. Painted for the Salon in 1892, the work is life-sized, challenging the archetypes of genre paintings by merging it with the format of grand portraiture.

The sale also features a strong selection of Barbizon works, including a breadth of paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Among the five works to be included by the artist is Une ferme de Dardagny, an oil on canvas painted between 1855 and 1857 (estimate: $350,000-450,000). A example of Corot’s ability to capture the effects of light and atmosphere in pastoral landscapes, Une ferme de Dardagny is also notable for its provenance. The work can be traced back to Corot’s pupil, Achille Franois Oudinot, who lived in Boston between 1876 and 1886 and made a living by selling his teacher’s paintings. A fantastic range of other exemplary works by Corot will also be featured in the sale. Paysage au clair de lune, a rare night scene that was just recently on view at the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (estimate: $300,000-500,000), and the recently rediscovered Paysage aux bouleaux argentés (estimate: $50,000-70,000) will also be offered.

Also among the Barbizon works to be offered in the sale is Gustave Courbet’s Paysage avec biches, which has remained in the same family for over eighty years. (estimate: $250,000-350,000). Though gaining notoriety for his enormous public figurative paintings, Courbet devoted almost three-quarters of his oeuvre to landscapes. Paysage avec biches is one of the artist’s sous-bois, or deep forest, paintings, which were particularly well-received, as they offered his city-bound viewers a sense of refuge and solitude. The two deer in the scene are completely relaxed and at ease, as one doe frolics in the stream while the other rests on a grassy knoll. While Courbet often drew inspiration for his landscapes from his experiences hunting in Ornans, the current work shows the artist solely as an observer in the environment who views the scene from a distance, careful to not cause any disruption. Le jardin de la Mère Toutain à Honfleur is another recently discovered work by Courbet that will be offered in April, having remained in private hands since 1867 (estimate: $100,000-150,000). The painting was likely executed in 1859 on a trip from Paris to Le Havre, where Courbet met fellow artist Eugene Boudin.

Two fantastic portraits by Anders Zorn will also be offered –a Portrait of Adolphus Busch (estimate: $150,000-250,000), as well as a portrait of Busch’s wife, Lilly Eberhard Anheuser (estimate: $120,000-180,000). While having already achieved great success in Sweden, it was Zorn’s American debut at the 1893 World’s Fair that cemented his reputation as one of the leading portraitists of his day. In addition to his commissions to paint three American presidents, Zorn often received requests to paint the country’s powerful elite, such as this consummate power portrait of the Anheuser-Busch brewery’s co-founder. A passionate businessman, Adolphus Busch and his brother Ulrich established a brewery in St. Louis in the late 1850s. It was then that they developed a relationship with the prosperous brewer Eberhard Anheuser, who also happened to have two eligible daughters. In 1861, Adolphus and Ulrich married Anheuser’s daughters Lilly and Ann in a double ceremony, thereby solidifying a beer empire. In addition to his triumphs in the beer industry, Adolphus became quite the Renaissance man, going on to corner the market on the manufacturing of diesel engines, becoming a bank president, and building the luxury hotel, The Adolphus, which is still in operation in Dallas today.