Nude Girl Found In Trash Brings £100,800 at Bonhams'

Friday, 16 June 2006 11:22

London - A large and very beautiful canvas of a reclining naked girl, painted by the critically acclaimed Croatian artist Vlaho Bukovac (1855-1923), saved from the rubbish heap and brought to Bonhams, sold (14 June 2006) for £100,800.  The figure made a new world record auction price for the artist, fetching more than double its pre-sale estimate.

The stunning nude study, signed, inscribed and dated ‘Bokovac 1887/ Paris’, which was bought by an anonymous private European bidder at Bonhams’ New Bond Street Salerooms in London, had been saved from destruction by the vendor during a New York hotel refurbishment when its previous owners had decided to throw it away.

Bonhams’ Director of Paintings, Caroline Oliphant, says: “It is astounding that something this beautiful could have been so easily destroyed.  Bukovac’s popularity and significant contribution to 19th century art was largely forgotten outside of Croatia during the 20th century, but thanks to recent campaigning by a number of people in the UK, including Lady Beresford-Peirse of the International Trust for Croatian Monuments and Alex Kidson of the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, the Croatian artist is beginning to make a come-back.”

Bukovac was a Croatian painter of grand historical scenes, great Victorian businessmen and Pre-Raphaelite style nudes.  A cosmopolitan European, he trained and worked in Paris, Belgrade, Prague, Dubrovnik, Zagreb, Liverpool and Harrogate. 

In the late 1880s, Bukovac was ‘discovered’ by two rich industrial magnates: Samson Fox of Harrogate and Richard Ledoux of Liverpool.  Both Fox and Ledoux were seduced by the charm of Bukovac’s academic style, his naked maidens and his Biblical scenes.  They commissioned him to paint their family portraits, and assembled lavish collections of his pictures to decorate their splendid homes.

Lady Beresford-Peirse, founder of the International Trust for Croatian Monuments, is a Croatian, married to a Yorkshireman, and has championed Bukovac for many years.  It is her ambition to discover the whereabouts of missing Bukovac paintings once owned by Samson Fox.

Visit Bonhams' at : www.bonhams.com