Provenanced to a Swedish private collection, where it had been since 1965, Sur Côte d’Azur, shown here, was a signed and dated 1896 canvas, measuring 2ft 8in by 2ft 11/2in (81 x 65cm), was in unlined condition and carried what many viewed as a temptingly modest estimate of SK300,000-400,000 (£21,290-£28,390).
Stewart was a Philadelphia-born artist who trained and worked in Paris where he specialised in portraits, landscapes and views of Venice in a winningly decorative Belle Epoque style.
Pretty women, yachting, the French Riviera and an American artist was a highly commercial combination and a lengthy bidding duel developed between the MacConnal-Mason gallery on the phone and a dealer in the room, the latter eventually prevailing at a massive SK2.8m (£198,720). This would appear to be the second highest price achieved for the artist after the $770,000 (£401,040) paid for Five o’clock Tea at Christie’s New York in November 1990.
An American in Paris of the Belle Epoque...
SWEDEN: AN unrestored canvas by the American painter Julius Leblanc Stewart (1855-1919) of two fashionably dressed ladies meeting on the deck of a yacht on the Côte d’Azur inspired predictably intense levels of demand when it came under the hammer at the Stockholm rooms of Stockholms Auctionsverk (17.5 per cent buyer’s premium) on May 22.
