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If you win at €800 you will pay ≈ €1,000 incl. 25% buyer's premium.
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Signed ‘Théodore Lévigne’ (lower right).
Sizes:
Frame: 51.5 × 60 cm | 20.3 × 23.6 in
Artwork: 38.5 × 46.5 cm | 15.2 × 18.3 in
A stone bridge crosses a stream at the foot of green hills; poplars and willows stand along the bank, and beyond them a long violet mountain closes the view under a sky of rolling grey cloud. The picture is painted with the quiet, exact observation of the Lyon school — every plane of the landscape given its own tone, the light diffused and cool.
Théodore Lévigne (1848–1912), born in Noirétable and trained at the Lyon École des Beaux-Arts and briefly under Cabanel and Gérôme in Paris, was one of the most versatile Lyonnais painters of his generation: landscapes, hunting scenes, portraits and military subjects. His landscapes of the Loire hills, the Dauphiné and the Bugey, often in muted half-tones like these, are his most personal work.
Signed ‘Théodore Lévigne’ at the lower right.
Good condition: a network of age craquelure across the sky and a few fine surface scratches in the centre, the paint layer stable and no retouching apparent; the ornate gilt frame with minor losses. Please contact us to request a detailed Condition Report.
Packed as size M (up to 80 × 60 cm) · 60 × 51.5 cm framed
Insurance is optional. It follows the final hammer price, so with insurance the total moves with the bidding. Indicative rates of our shipping partner MBE for packing and door-to-door transport; the final quote is confirmed after the sale. Import duties and taxes outside the EU are paid by the buyer.
We coordinate packing and shipping on your behalf, with insurance available if you’d like it — or you’re welcome to arrange your own. Please see our Shipping Information page for full details before completing your purchase.
This lot is catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification and is covered by our Five-Year Authenticity Guarantee under Section 4 of the Conditions of Sale. The guarantee concerns authorship; it does not extend to provenance, dating, condition or value, which are described to the best of our knowledge.
Buyers should review the catalogue carefully and raise any questions before bidding; additional information is not ordinarily provided after the auction.
Five years on authorship for works catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification (Section 4 of our Conditions of Sale); headings such as “Attributed to” or “Circle of” are sold as described.
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Bidding on this site, the buyer’s premium is 25%, Spanish IVA included. There is no VAT on the hammer price and no card fee.
| Starting price | Low estimate | High estimate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hammer price | €800 | €1,000 | €1,200 |
| Buyer’s premium 25% (IVA included) | €200 | €250 | €300 |
| Total on auroraathena.com | €1,000 | €1,250 | €1,500 |
| Total through a bidding platform (30%) | €1,040 | €1,300 | €1,560 |
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%: the same hammer of €1,200 costs €1,560 there against €1,500 here. Shipping and insurance are quoted separately; the estimator below gives the figure for your country. Buyers outside the EU pay no Spanish tax on the lot; the destination’s import rules apply (United States: original paintings and drawings enter duty-free; United Kingdom: 5% import VAT on art). Card payments are accepted up to €10,000; larger amounts by bank transfer.
The estimate of €1,000–€1,200 is our opinion of the range this work should reach; the starting price of €800 is the lowest bid we accept. We have not published comparable results for this lot; ask us before the sale and we will send the results we based the estimate on.
Bidding on this site, the buyer’s premium is 25%, Spanish IVA included, and there is no VAT on the hammer price and no card fee: at the starting price of €800 the total is €1,000; at the low estimate of €1,000 the total is €1,250; at the high estimate of €1,200 the total is €1,500.
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%, so the same hammer of €1,200 costs €1,560 there. Shipping and insurance are quoted separately; the estimator on this page gives the figure for your country. Buyers outside the EU pay no Spanish tax on the lot; the destination’s import rules apply (United States: original paintings and drawings enter duty-free; United Kingdom: 5% import VAT on art). Card payments are accepted up to €10,000; larger amounts by bank transfer.
Yes. This lot is catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification, so it carries our Five-Year Authenticity Guarantee under Section 4 of the Conditions of Sale: if the authorship proves materially incorrect, you may return the work within five years for a refund of the purchase price. The guarantee concerns authorship; provenance, dating, condition and value are described to the best of our knowledge and are not guaranteed.
A condition report with ultraviolet photographs is prepared on request, normally within two working days; the condition summary on this page is examined in-house and is not a conservator’s report. Further photographs of any detail, the reverse or the frame are sent on request. The work can be examined in our Barcelona showroom by appointment before the sale, and you are welcome to send your own conservator or specialist.
You can leave a maximum bid before the sale (the sale is on Saturday, October 17th, 2026 (Auction ended)) or bid live in our online room. A maximum bid is executed by the auctioneer only as much as is needed to stay ahead of other bidders, in the sale’s increments, never above your maximum.
Where a reserve exists it never exceeds the low estimate; a lot without a reserve sells to the highest bid at or above the starting price of €800.
Théodore Lévigne was born in Noirétable in the Forez hills in 1848, the son of a bootmaker, and grew up in the Saint-Jean quarter of Lyon, where his family moved in 1856. He entered the Lyon École des Beaux-Arts at twelve and at fifteen won its highest award, the Laurier d’Or; a scholarship from the city took him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the studios of Cabanel and Gérôme.
Disappointed by Paris, he returned to Lyon, regained his stipend in 1867 and spent the rest of his career there, exhibiting at the Lyon and Paris Salons.
Lévigne painted everything — portraits, still lifes, hunting and military scenes, genre pictures of Lyonnais life — but his reputation rests on his landscapes: the misty waterways and wintry half-tones of the Lyon countryside, the Loire and Dauphiné hills, and, in contrast, the sunlit Mediterranean coast. The decorations he painted for the Peillard estate near Noirétable have been the subject of a recent study.
Rediscovered in recent years by the auction houses, he is represented in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and in the museums of Roanne and Saint-Étienne. He died in Lyon in 1912.
Théodore Lévigne (1848–1912), the prodigy of the Lyon École des Beaux-Arts who painted everything from military scenes to misty Loire landscapes and is now being rediscovered by the auction houses; his River Landscape with a Stone Bridge is at Aurora & Athena.
Highlights of the Aurora & Athena autumn sale on 17 October 2026: Bridget Tichenor, Nicholas Roerich, Konstantin Korovin, Gerard Sekoto, Jan Zrzavý, Pan Yuliang, a Miró lithograph and the painters of the École de Paris.
“The description and photos of the artwork were accurate, and I felt confident in my purchase from the beginning. The team was quick to answer my questions and kept me well informed throughout the process.”
“I had a really good experience after the sale — it was smooth, asked a question and got an answer right away. Their customer service is excellent and very fast. Definitely recommend them.”
