The Romanian art market marks a historic moment – the 500th art auction held A10 Auction House by Artmark, an important presence in the Romanian cultural landscape for the past 15 years. Thus, the Spring Auction promises to be one of the most important and spectacular cultural events of the year, presenting to the public rare masterpieces of art, selected works signed by the great masters of Romanian art, as well as historical collections. The anniversary event will be held under the sign of passion for important Romanian art, being an outstanding art show.

The spring auction will take place on March 29 and will include an exceptional collection of works of art signed by the great masters of Romanian art of various periods and styles: Nicolae Grigorescu, Nicolae Tonica, Camila Ressa, Alexandra Cucurenko, Nicolae Darasca, Samuel Mutzner. , Josyp Iser or Gheorghe Petrascu.

Thus, an important anniversary event causes the appearance of masterpieces with the autograph of the master Nikolai Tonitz, known and celebrated in museum exhibitions. Experienced artist of children’s portraits, Nicolae Tonica, signs “Little Girl with a Pink Bow”, a tender portrait full of innocence and curiosity, large size, with a starting price of €60,000.

The most valuable work signed by Nicolae Tonica from the March 29 auction is “Circus World”, a series of three different portraits of a family of circus performers, with a starting price of €90,000. In the interwar period, a series of works was part of the collection of the great enthusiast Leon Lazerson, one of the most prominent collectors of Palladi, Tonica, Petrascu and Chukurenko. Lazerson, originally from Latvia, settled in Romania in 1919, becoming one of the largest industrialists in the oil industry in the interwar period. First an engineer at “Concordia”-Moreni, then at the oil company “Steaua Română”, in 1938, together with his brother, he opened a company importing oil equipment – a biography that justifies the financial status of one of the richest collectors of the 3rd and 4th decades – his collection became “perhaps the most demanding in terms of plastic value of anything we have in Bucharest today”, Corneliu Baba said with admiration in 1945. After 1945, the triptych was successively included in the collections of F. Philip, Ilia Mirea and Otilia Shaffer, and over time participated in important retrospective exhibitions. It is probably the only known Tonica triptych, but it can also be read as three different, thematically related works. Three members of the family – mother, father and their daughter, at the same time three typologies, representing the “genius of magnificent sorrows”, make up the world of artists, which allows you to look at yourself – at the same time as your own soul. view.

Nicolae Grigorescu, the great master of Romanian art, is present at the spring auction with three works: “Elisabeta Doamna în său atelier”, “Rest” and “Return from the field”, among which one is exceptional, of historical importance. The appearance of the work “Elisabeta Doamna în atelierul saeu” is an event in the revival of Romanian art of the 19th century after 75 years of ideological prohibitions. The work, which has a starting price of just €40,000, comes from the collection of the diplomat Viorel Thilea, a member of the great Transylvanian Raciu family and Minister Plenipotentiary of Romania in London between 1938 and 1940, and is a reduced version of the work made approx. 1880 for the future Queen Elizabeth of Romania (about a year before Romania became a kingdom). It is noteworthy that the work on this work is mentioned in the correspondence between Nicolae Grigorescu and Princess Elizabeth in 1879.

Another completely original work of Nicolae Grigorescu is the painting “Rest” – an innocent image of a cat resting. The starting price of the work is 15,000 euros, it comes from the historical collection of Teodor Burgele, a famous surgeon and academician, and in the 70s the president of the Romanian Academy (Dr. Burgele, whose monument is installed in the courtyard of the hospital in Bucharest, who wears his name, in the last years of his life he was also the Minister of Health, as well as the personal doctor of Nicolae Ceausescu). What is unique about this work is the subject – it belongs to the category of the few oil configurations of animals in the works of Grigorescu (apart from the famous studies of Buleni), it is probably the only feline painted by the artist.

“Spring auction. Anniversary Auction No. 500 (Part I)” will be held on Wednesday, March 29 at 7:00 p.m. at the InterContinental Athénée Palace, Regina Maria Hall, one of Bucharest’s most elegant hotels, recently renamed and renovated, offering art collectors and lovers physical participation in a public event dedicated to Romanian art – for the first time after the online years of the pandemic.

151 works signed by the great masters of Romanian art – Nicolae Grigorescu, Nicolae Tonica, Francisc Sirato, Nicolae Vermont, Gheorghe Petrascu, Stefan Dimitrescu, Camil Ressu, Oscar Khan, Horia Bernea or Constantin Pilutce, etc. can be visited for free at Palatul Cesianu-Racoviță, from CA Rosetti Street No. 5. The exhibition is open from Monday to Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Article supported by A10 by Artmark