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Robert Lépine (1929-2017) Figures of Stone before the Black Mountain, 1966
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Details
Signed and dated ‘Lépine 66’ (lower left).
Sizes:
Frame: 54.5 × 74 cm | 21.5 × 29.1 in
Artwork: 53.5 × 73 cm | 21.1 × 28.7 in
On a plain of yellow sand, under a grey sky in which white clouds hang like torn paper, stand creatures of weathered rock: a long-necked beast on the left, part camel, part eroded cliff, and on the right two hunched forms in pink and grey that might be bears or standing stones. Behind them a black pyramid of a mountain rises from a strip of turquoise sea, and two tiny human figures at its foot give the scale. The paint is scraped and dragged, the outlines drawn in black, the sand built up in warm impasto.
Dated 1966, the picture belongs to the French post-surrealist vein of the 1960s, where the fantastic landscapes of Ernst and Tanguy were reworked in a freer, more painterly manner. Lépine’s rock-creatures are at once geology and zoology, and the painting reads as a dream of a desert shore, the kind of inner landscape that French painters of the period found between abstraction and figuration.
Provenance
Acquired in France.
Private Collection, Spain.
Condition Report
Oil on canvas, unlined, on its original stretcher. The paint layer is stable; light surface dust and a few minor scuffs to the impasto. Presented in a narrow wooden strip frame. Please contact us to request a detailed Condition Report.
Shipping
Packed as size M (up to 80 × 60 cm) · 74 × 54.5 cm framed
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- Made-to-measure wooden crate (works over 20,000 €)
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€ (the low estimate to start)
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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.
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 | €300 | €300 | €500 |
| Buyer’s premium 25% (IVA included) | €75 | €75 | €125 |
| Total on auroraathena.com | €375 | €375 | €625 |
| Total through a bidding platform (30%) | €390 | €390 | €650 |
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%: the same hammer of €500 costs €650 there against €625 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 €300–€500 is our opinion of the range this work should reach; the starting price of €300 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 €300 the total is €375; at the low estimate of €300 the total is €375; at the high estimate of €500 the total is €625.
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%, so the same hammer of €500 costs €650 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 €300.
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.
Robert Lépine
Robert Lépine (1929–2017) was a French painter whose long career ran from the fantastic landscapes of the 1960s, creatures and figures of weathered rock standing on sandy plains before dark mountains and strips of sea, under skies of torn white cloud, to abstract oils and gouaches in the 1970s and, in later years, light watercolours of the places he loved: Provence and Aix, the Côte d’Azur, Corsica, Brittany, the Basque Country and the Bordeaux coast.
The oils of the 1960s, scraped and dragged paint with black outlines and warm impasto, belong to the post-surrealist current of French painting of those years, between the dream landscapes of Tanguy and Ernst and the gestural abstraction of the Paris schools.
The contents of his studio were dispersed by Millon at Nice in June 2024, in a sale of painters of the South and the Côte d’Azur that showed the whole range of his work, from a 1974 ‘Composition en jaune et noir’ to the watercolours of his last decades. His paintings appear regularly in French and European sales.
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