Review 2025

20 ‘LES BELLES DU BAL’ At the March 2025 auction of 19 th -century paint- ings, a large group portrait by Otto Scholderer emerged as the undisputed star of the sale. Cre- ated in 1879/80, the painting depicts ten women and two children preparing for a costume ball, and attracted strong interest from both museums and private collectors. Scholderer, who trained at the Städelschule in his native Frankfurt am Main, was a close friend of Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, Hans Thoma and Wilhelm Leibl. He is regarded as an important link between Romanticism and Impres- sionism in German painting of the second half of the 19 th century. The final price of CHF 185 000 ex- ceeded the upper estimate by a factor of ten; the large-scale painting was acquired by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot’s museum-quality painting ‘La chevrière italienne’, created around 1860/65, belongs to the late work of the ‘founding father’ of 19 th -century landscape painting. His Ital- ianised depictions of nature enjoyed great success during his lifetime, and the fascination with his landscapes has remained undiminished world- wide ever since. The painting we offered had formed part of the renowned art collection of the philanthropist Estelle Doheny in Los Angeles from 1914 on- wards, before entering Switzerland from her es- tate in 1988. We were thus able to offer it 'fresh to the market'. Entering our September auction with an attractive estimate, it achieved a suc- cessful result of CHF 150 000.