Paul Cezanne's Les Pommes to auction for $35m with Sotheby's

One of Paul Cezanne's greatest works, Les Pommes, will headline Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art auction, which will be held on May 7 in New York.

Cezanne's Les Pommes
This unassuming composition displays Cezanne's finest techniques



The work originates from the Collection of Alex and Elisabeth Lewyt, and will sell with a $25m-35m estimate. The collection also provides the sale's second highest valued lot, Amedeo Modigliani's L'Amazone.

Les Pommes was painted in 1889-1890 and, according to Sotheby's, "encapsulates Cezanne's artistic achievement". With the artist's still-life works particularly valued in his oeuvre, this piece displays Cezanne's full strength, demonstrating the innovations that caused Picasso to describe him as "the father of us all".

Cezanne's Card Players is thought to be the world's most valuable artwork, after Vanity Fair reported that the Qatari royal family had bought the visionary work for between $250m and $320m in 2011. A watercolour study for the piece brought $19.1m in May 2012.

Modigliani L'Amazone
'A femme fatale to rival his most revealing nudes'



Modigliani's L'Amazone will follow Les Pommes, as an early masterpiece and one of his most famous works. Erotically charged, it depicts Baroness Marguerite de Hasse de Villers and was commissioned by her boyfriend Jean Alexandre, brother of Modigliani's close friend Paul Alexandre.

The masterpiece is valued at $20m-30m, with Sotheby's describing it as "a femme fatale to rival his most revealing nudes" and a portrait that reveals Modigliani's deeply passionate artistic vision.

L'Amazone can expect strong results after Modigiliani's portrait of his lover Jean Hebuterne sold for $42.3m at Christie's in February.

Also starring is a sculpture by Picasso, which is expected to realise between $12m and $18m. Among his most powerful interpretations of the human face, this piece depicts his 20-year-old neighbour Sylvette David painted on bent sheet metal from two different angles, which present themselves as the sculpture is rotated.

The sale is sure to command the attention of the art world's premier collectors, with impressionist art one of the best-selling and most respected genres.

Paul Fraser Collectibles offers some brilliant opportunities for those looking to join the market, with a signed postcard from Pablo Picasso and autographed letters from Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

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