06 May 2018

Chess Art, Paris 1925

Here on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), we've had A Six-Figure Chess Item at Auction (November 2017; 'Marcel Duchamp : Pocket Chess Set'), and A Seven-Figure Chess Item at Auction (also November 2017; 'The Chess Players' by William Roberts). A five-figure item might seem commmonplace, but there were only three others listed in the 'Six-Figure' post.

The item pictured below was titled 'Frantisek Zdenek Eberl, French/Czech (1887-1962), Chess Players, oil', and subtitled 'Part of a live auction event on Thursday, Apr 26'. The winning bid was US $38,000 after 20 bids.

The description repeated the information in the title and added,

Seller's Estimate: USD 6,000 - 8,000.
Oil on canvas, signed "F.Z. Eberl" and dated "Paris 25" lower left.
Inscribed "Salon d'Automne" and "d'Office" on the reverse.
41 x 28 1/2 inches.

Provenance: Ancienne Maison P. Ferret, L. Helvig, Successeur, Paris, France; Private Collection, New Jersey.
Exhibitions: Salon d'Automne (1925), Paris, France.

Wikipedia's page on the artist, François Zdenek Eberl, says,

François Zdenek Eberl (1887-1962) was a Czech-born painter who worked mainly in Paris, France. At his prime, his name was included among those of fellow painters and personal friends Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Maurice de Vlaminck. [...] Drawing inspiration from the folklore of Paris, his preference was to paint the street scenes and nightclubs as he observed them.

How does that fit into Chess and Art Movements (December 2017)?

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