Christie’s is offering the Impressionist art collection of Edwin L. Cox at an exhibition, titled The Cox Collection: The Story of Impressionism, in November. The auction house has dubbed the exhibition as one of the greatest American collections to ever appear on the market.
The exhibition will feature 25 works including masterpiece works by Caillebotte, Cézanne and van Gogh. The collection was assembled half a century ago and is expected to realize in excess of $200 million. A portion of the sale proceeds will benefit educational purposes.
The businessman, collector, and philanthropist Edwin Lochridge Cox stood at the forefront of civic life in Texas and the greater United States. He started collecting art half a century ago and according to the art advisor Stephanie Connery, many of the works have not been seen in public since before the Second World War.
Highlights of the collection include one of Gustave Cailleboite’s best known works, Jeune homme à sa fenêtre, which was featured in the first exhibition of Impressionist works in America in 1886. The picture, which shows Cailleboite’s brother Rene gazing out from a Parisian apartment, is an elegant mix of academic technique and realism. The work is expected to fetch over $50m.
Vincent van Gogh’s Cabanes de bois parmi les oliviers et cyprès will also be included in the exhibition. The work shows a combination of the artist’s favorite Provençal motifs and encapsulates the characteristics of the artist’s mature style that emerged at Saint-Rémy, where it was executed in October 1889. The work is expected to fetch around $40m.
Also included in the sale is Paul Cezanne’s L’Estaque aux toits rouges (1883-1885), a brilliantly coloured picture in which it is easy to see the seeds of Cubism taking root (est. $35m-$55m).