Estimate

40.000 - 60.000

Session 1

25 March 2026

Hammer Price

Description

Oil on canvas
Depicting three young girls, possibly sisters, wearing Empire-style dress, gathered around a bust of Minerva in an interior garden setting. The eldest, on the left of the composition, holds a dove against her chest; at the centre, the youngest is shown kneeling, raising a basket of flowers towards the goddess; and the third, standing on the right, holds laurel branches in both hands

180x130 cm

Category

Paintings

Additional Information

Henri-Nicolas van Gorp (Paris, c. 1756 – Beaumont-sur-Oise, 1820) was admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1773, under the protection of Étienne Jeaurat, and was a fellow student of Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845). He exhibited regularly at the Salon de Paris between 1796 and 1819, initially dedicating himself to genre scenes of a sentimental and moralising character and, from the early 19th century onwards, almost exclusively to portraiture. In the painting now presented for auction, the arrangement of the three figures, with their gaze directed at the viewer, each holding an offering intended for the Roman goddess of wisdom, protector of poets and guardian of knowledge, confers upon the portrait an allegorical dimension characteristic of the Neoclassical tradition.

Provenance:
Christie's, London, 21 March 1986, lot 40
Scandinavian private collection
Lempertz, Cologne, 30 May 2020, lot 2129