Young couple from Rusadla by Alphonse Mucha – $800,000 (£601,505) at Toomey’s.
£1 = $1.33
This oil on canvas of a white-robed young couple by the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860- 1939) was sold by Chicago auction house Toomey & Co (25/20/15% buyer’s premium) for $800,000 (£601,505) on December 2.
Mucha, who was born in what is now the Czech Republic, is known to many for his posters and other commercial art produced in Paris in the Art Nouveau era but in later life he returned to Czechoslovakia. Working in Prague, he focused on producing paintings relating to Slavic heritage and tradition, embarking on a massive Slavic epic cycle of works that occupied him for 25 years.
Toomey’s painting, which measures 2ft 6¼in x 2ft 1in (77 x 63.5cm) and is signed and dated lower right Mucha 20, is a fully realised study from a much larger and slightly earlier composition titled Rusadla which features the procession of a Slavic midsummer feast, known as Rusal week or Rusalje. It shows an encounter between the Slavic people and mythical female water creatures known as Rusalki. The couple appear in Rusadla in the upper right-hand corner of the larger composition.