​The winter auction, organized by Artmark in the form of a special event at Cesiana-Rakovice Palace, allows the general public to get acquainted with the works of the most valuable and popular Romanian artists of all time – Nicolae Tonica, Teodora Palladi, Gheorghe Petrascu, Stefan Lucian, Nicolae Grigorescu, Octav Benchila, Samuel Mutzner etc.

Top 10 classics over €100,000, Tonica, an important Romanian artist, is signing five works at next week’s auction, including a portrait of his adopted daughter Nineta Gusti, made between 1924 and 1926. Nineta was his model from childhood until his teenage years, when he moved to Bucharest to enter the conservatory. Also dating from the same period is the “Micuta tatăroaica” portrait, a possible pendant of Nineta, conceived together, on the same scale. The price of each of the two children’s heads – a cult theme in Tonica’s work – starts at 15,000 euros.

Another portrait presented at the auction, Racish Ali (1936), one of the wonderful Tatar women to whom Tonica dedicated many works, belongs to the period when Nicolae Tonica began, belatedly following the call of his friend and workshop colleague Stefan Dimitrescu, to visit Balcicul . The facial features and clothes chosen by the artist introduce us to the Eastern universe and give precious hints about the life of the little model. The starting price for this lot of an oriental girl with rich red hair is 20,000 euros.

Another highlight of the auction, which was part of the historical collection of the Ceausescu family, is an important painting dedicated to the mature work of the master Gheorghe Petrascu, recognized and noted especially for his interior canvases that describe daily life and the specifics of one’s own home.

The painting, painted in 1938, depicts a house in Tirgovishte, in its intimacy, with a restrained silhouette of his wife Lucretia in a decorative frame. Both Lucretia and the children – Piki and Mariana – represent the central motifs in Petrascu’s work, interiors and scenes are reconstructed around them, from elements that have emotional value: from the traditional Bessarabian black carpet, covered with colorful touches, to the indispensable sofa, armchair. or an unmistakable wall of paintings, many of them recognizable, most of them ending up in museums. The starting price for this oil is at the level of 15,000 euros.

The public is also invited to learn the stories of one of Romania’s most important families of artists, Rodica Maniu and Samuel Mützner, whose decades of life and art together are revealed through pieces from the couple’s private collection.

Selected exhibits include approximately ten works by Samuel Mützner, a valuable series of personal items from the lives of both; worth noting are the artist’s sketchbooks and notes, a Limoges porcelain table clock that appears in several works by Samuel Mützner, a passport issued to the artist for trips abroad, the period of King Charles I, or a certificate of divorce (divorce) between two dated November 18, 1940. A rare photograph shows the artist in front of an easel, taken while painting a pagoda in Japan, where he spent nearly three years between 1912 and 1915 – both in Tokyo and in the old capital of Kyoto.

206 works signed by the great masters of Romanian art, complemented by sequences from the collections of Nina Casianu, Rodica and Samuel Mützner, can be visited for free at Palatul Cesianu-Racoviță, on CA Rosetti Street no. 5. The exhibition is open from Monday to Sunday from 10:00 to 20:00.

The auction will take place on Thursday, December 14 at 19:00 in the Palatul Cesianu-Racoviță auction room, as well as online on the Artmark Live platform.

Article supported by A10 by Artmark