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Alfred Swieykowski (1869-1953) The Harbour at Saint-Malo, c. 1920's
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Details
Signed and inscribed ‘Swieykowski / St Malo’ (lower left).
Sizes:
Frame: 34 × 48 cm | 13.4 × 18.9 in
Artwork: 26 × 40.5 cm | 10.2 × 15.9 in
The inner harbour of Saint-Malo in bright, cold light: a fishing boat with a red deckhouse lies against the quay, two cranes stand on the far side of the basin, and beyond them the granite ramparts and the tall slate-roofed houses of the walled town rise against a turquoise sky. A single figure walks along the quay on the right. The paint is thick and fast, the pale stone of the quays laid on in loaded, ridged strokes, the water scraped in with a few greens and greys.
Alfred Swieykowski (1869–1953), a Parisian of Polish descent and a pupil of Cormon, was a painter of the Seine, the Alps and the coasts who exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français for half a century and took a silver medal at the 1937 Exposition Internationale. This small, vigorous panel-sized canvas, inscribed with the place, is a plein-air sketch of the kind he made on his travels; the town is shown as it stood before the destruction of 1944.
Provenance
Acquired in France.
Private Collection, Spain.
Condition Report
Oil on canvas, unlined, on its original stretcher. The paint layer is stable; scattered small flecks of old loss and rubbing in the thickest impasto of the quay and along the edges, consistent with a plein-air sketch; light surface dirt. Presented in a modern gilt frame with a white slip. Please contact us to request a detailed Condition Report.
Shipping
Packed as size S (up to 60 × 50 cm) · 48 × 34 cm framed
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- Made-to-measure wooden crate (works over 20,000 €)
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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.
Authenticity & Buyer Information
This lot is catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification. Provenance, dating and condition are described to the best of our knowledge; the sale is governed by our Conditions of Sale.
Buyers should review the catalogue carefully and raise any questions before bidding; additional information is not ordinarily provided after the auction.
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What it costs
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 | €400 | €500 | €700 |
| Buyer’s premium 25% (IVA included) | €100 | €125 | €175 |
| Total on auroraathena.com | €500 | €625 | €875 |
| Total through a bidding platform (30%) | €520 | €650 | €910 |
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%: the same hammer of €700 costs €910 there against €875 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.
Questions about this lot
How does the estimate compare with the artist’s recent auction results?
The estimate of €500–€700 is our opinion of the range this work should reach; the starting price of €400 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.
What will this lot cost in total?
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 €400 the total is €500; at the low estimate of €500 the total is €625; at the high estimate of €700 the total is €875.
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%, so the same hammer of €700 costs €910 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.
How is this lot catalogued?
Under the artist’s name without qualification. Provenance, dating, condition and value are described to the best of our knowledge; the sale is governed by the Conditions of Sale.
Can I see the condition report, more photographs or the work itself?
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.
How does bidding work, and can a maximum bid make me overpay?
You can leave a maximum bid before the sale (the sale is on Saturday, November 28th - 17:00 (CET)) 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 €400.
Is there a limit on how much I can bid?
Every account is approved for bidding as soon as the e-mail address is confirmed, with a limit of €5,000 per bid until the identity is verified. The limit applies everywhere: in the live room, on the lot page and to maximum bids. To bid without a limit, verify your identity in your account on this site: it takes about three minutes on a phone, is done once, and the limit is lifted automatically as soon as the check is complete. Please do it at least an hour before the sale.
Alfred Swieykowski
Alfred Swieykowski was born in Paris in 1869 to a father of Polish-Russian origin and a Belgian mother. He trained in Paris under Fernand Cormon and Paulin Bertrand and exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from the end of the nineteenth century onwards; he sat on the jury of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1927 and won a silver medal at the Exposition Internationale of 1937.
He painted the Seine in Paris and at Chatou, the villages of Normandy around La Ferrière-sur-Risle where he lived, the mountains of Haute-Savoie and the harbours of the coasts, in a vigorous post-Impressionist manner with a loaded brush and a bright, cool palette.
The Centre Pompidou holds his ‘Soleil couchant à Saint-Paul’, and the museum of Chatou and the Musée du Rouloir at Conches-en-Ouche have devoted exhibitions to him; an association of his friends, founded in 2004, has located some six hundred of his paintings. He died in Paris in 1953.
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