PAINTINGS
Edouard Manet portrait of Mery Laurent
$2,248,366.00
Edouard Manet portrait of Mery Laurent
Edouard Manet portrait of Mery Laurent
Oil on Canvas 55,5 cm x 46 cm
PRICE ON REQUEST
A Swiss antiques dealer believes he has found an unsigned work of master impressionist Edouard Manet, but has run into a brick wall in the labyrinthine corridors of the art world in his bid to get the painting recognised. Jules Petroz and his wife Aicha made the discovery at Geneva's Plainpalais flea market in 1997. "I'd seen this ordinary pastel-on-paper sitting on the ground for some time. No one wanted it," he said. But this time I noticed a small tear in one corner and glimpsed what appeared to be an oil painting underneath. I hid my excitement and bought it for 15 Swiss francs (10)." Back home, he ripped off the pastel and he and Aicha gasped at the quality of a painting that revealed a red-headed beauty with bare breasts. Petroz, who freely admits he is not an expert on impressionists, immediately took the painting to the Geneva offices of Christie's and Sotheby's. Both houses pronounced it a likely masterpiece and said it resembled the work of Edouard Manet. But they stressed the only way it could be sold or auctioned was to get a certificate of authenticity from the Wildenstein Foundation in Paris, which has exclusive rights to attribute the works of the 19th-century master. Petroz immediately wrote a letter to what he would discover was one of the world's most powerful and secretive art houses. He enclosed an enlarged photograph of the painting and offered to pay all expenses if Daniel Wildenstein would come to Geneva to inspect it.