High-relief depicting an archaizing Dionysus head, topped wi - Lot 203

CHEVALLIER-VEREL COLLECTION: EGYPTIAN, GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES

Hôtel des ventes de Drouot, room 10, Paris

Exhibitions :

December 11, 11am to 6pm

December 12, 11am to 12pm

(Visible by appointment before this date with expert Daniel Lebeurrier)

Sale :

December 12 at 2 pm

Information on the Chevallier-Verel Collection Victor Emile Gabriel Chevallier (born 07/11/1889 in Frontenaud, died 09/05/1969 in Sèvres) married Marguerite Jeanne Verel (born 05/12/1887 in Paris, died 04/03/1962 in Saulieu) on 12/27/1928 in Paris. They lived on rue Jacob in Paris.

Mr. Chevallier was an associate professor at the Lycée Montaigne in Paris, and spent 44 years in civil and military service. He was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur on March 21, 1955. For her part, we find traces of Madame Vérel as a lecturer at the Louvre Museum. Both collect Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, antique paintings, furniture and objets d'art, as well as Far Eastern and Asian art. With no heirs, the collection passed to a family friend of the couple and was preserved for three generations, always enriched from time to time by new acquisitions.

Monsieur Chevallier never ceased to take photos of the most beautiful pieces in his collection. These photographs are now kept by the current owner's family. Our Aponem office asked Daniel Lebeurier, an archaeology expert with the CA de Paris, to study each piece in this collection, most of which was assembled by the Chevallier-Verel couple. The ink numbers we find under each piece correspond to a reference in the handwritten inventory kept by the couple and still in the possession of the current owners.

This precious document enables us to identify the vast majority of these pieces. It is irrefutable proof that the majority of these pieces were acquired in the first half of the 20th century, and at the latest before 1969, the date of Chevallier's death. The vast collection comprises some 240 works, mainly terracottas, terrescuites, alabasters, a few bronzes and marbles, including the imposing male statue of an ephebe crowned with ivy and corymbs of the Praxitellian type, in the case of the naked young Dionysus, with two long locks of hair falling on his shoulders.

of hair falling to his shoulders, wiggling in contrapposto. This beige-patinated marble is a fine example of Roman art from the 1st-2nd centuries AD (lot 207) and is the highlight of the collection.

The collection mainly features ceramics from Mesopotamia, including a unique tablet (lot 6), Egypt from the NAgada period (3900 to 3500 BC) to the Ptolemaic period, Greece, Corinth (Mycenaean period), Etruria from the 7th century BC, Cyprus (11th century BC), to Classical Greece. Unicum in terms of decoration is a lekythos (lot 189) depicting figures plunging into the waves, or this rare ensemble from the Tanagra workshop (lots 121 to 135) featuring male and female figures and some of their molds; an art that finds an echo in the work of the great artists of the early 20th century.

This collection of Greek ceramics is significant both in terms of numbers and pictorial and formal diversity. The Roman period is also represented in this collection, with a rare subject featured on an oil lamp (lot 208) depicting a figure riding an elephant, a very rare theme. As you will have gathered, this collection has been passed down with respect and passion through four generations who have been keen to pass it on, sometimes enriching it, but above all preserving it with absolute respect in memory of the Chevallier-Verel couple's passion for Greco-Roman, Egyptian and Mesopotamian art.

LOTS 1 TO 240

Mesopotamia: lots 1 to 6

Egypt: lots 7 to 47

Greece - Corinth / Mycenae: lots 48 to 120

Greece, Tanagra: lots 121 to 145

Greece, terracotta vases and vessels, black & red figures: lots 146 to 202

Roman Art: lots 203 to 240

Sale expert :

Daniel Lebeurrier

Expert to the Paris Court of Appeal

9 rue de Verneuil, 75007 PARIS

01 42 61 37 66

galerie.gilgamesh@wanadoo.fr

Sales managers:

Olivier Valmier, licensed auctioneer and partner

Aurélien Lechertier, licensed auctioneer

Baptiste Renié

contact@aponem.com