Business Art News
STRAUSS & CO
Important works by visionary collectors on offer at October sale straussart.co.za
Adolph Jentsch, SOUTH AFRICAN 1888-1977, Vlei on Farm Teufelsbach, signed with the artist’s initials and dated 1947, oil on canvas, 45,5 by 66,5cm, R 600 000 - 800 000, from the Late Peter and Regina Strack Collection
A magisterial floral still life by Irma Stern, South Africa’s foremost painter, is the highlight of Strauss & Co’s bountiful crop of offerings at its forthcoming spring sale in Cape Town on 15 October. Painted in 1947, Dahlias (estimate R8 – 12 million) is a peak-period Stern depicting a favoured flower and additionally claims an impeccable provenance. Originally owned by renowned art collectors Ben and Cecilia Jaffe, Stern’s brilliantly coloured oil was acquired by noted Cape Town collector Count Luccio Labia in 1994 at a sale handled by auctioneer Stephan Welz, who in 2009 helped establish Strauss & Co, now South Africa’s leading auction house. Part of a consignment of 22 paintings from the Labia Family Collection, Dahlias exhibits Stern’s masterful brushwork and authoritative handling of paint. Dahlias were a recurrent subject in Stern’s paintings from the 1930s and 40s. The artist produced five such still lifes featuring these
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sumptuous cut flowers, of which this painting is the fifth. Dahlias has been characterised by noted Stern scholar Marion Arnold as an “exuberant composition” that bursts “beyond the confines of the frame” (Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye, 1995). The intersection of quality and provenance is a hallmark of Strauss & Co’s October sale. The catalogue includes 22 paintings released from the Labia Family Collection, as well as 20 works in various media from the Peter and Regina Strack Collection, notably three rare oils by Adolph Jentsch. Count Luccio Labia, who passed away in November 2016, was well known for his judicious taste, both in art and cars. The son of Count Natale Teodato Labia and Princess Ida Labia, nee Robinson, daughter of South African mining magnate and art collector Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson (1840–1929), his art collection included works by South African, European and British artists.
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