Portrait by Joseph Marie Vien – €18,000 (£16,363) at Ivoire France.
Outside Paris auctions have also started up. The Hotel des Ventes de Troyes (24% buyer’s premium), which is part of the Ivoire group, held a sale on May 28 with just four people in the room but 885 registered online.
Highlights included a portrait by the French Old Master Joseph Marie Vien (1716-1809) of his son Jean-Marie which was pre-empted by the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, the town of his birth. The hitherto unpublished painting was known through a pastel by or after Vien that is now in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Beziers, The 18 x 14¾in (46 x 37.5cm) oil on canvas sold for €18,000 (£16,363) against predictions of €8000-12,000.