First Course for a Fall Art Feast : Sotheby’s to Sell Works From Late Soup Magnate’s Collection

The heat of summer is still very much with us, but the sellers and buyers of the big-ticket art auction circuit are already looking ahead to a sizzling fall season.

Evidence of that development is on view at Sotheby’s Beverly Hills, which has unveiled a high-end sampling of a $100-million auction upcoming in New York. The local preview, continuing through Tuesday, features 24 Impressionist paintings from the collection of the late John T. Dorrance Jr., the former chairman of the Campbell Soup Co.

A late Vincent van Gogh painting, depicting a woman awaiting the return of her sailor husband, and one of Claude Monet’s “Haystack” paintings are the most expensive works exhibited. The Van Gogh is valued at $10 million to

$15 million; the Monet is expected to bring between $7 million and $9 million. Big bucks, but not enough to surpass Van Gogh’s record of $53.9 million (for “Irises”) or Monet’s record of $24.5 million (for “In the Prairie”).

The auction itself is billed as a potential record-breaker, however. Sotheby’s expects the four-day sale (Oct. 18-21) of about 1,000 objects to exceed Christie’s $85-million auction of 28 Impressionist and modern paintings from the William and Edith Mayer Goetz collection. The Goetz sale in 1988 holds the record for a single collection sold at auction.

Dorrance, who died in April, collected a vast array of fine and decorative arts--from Old Master paintings to European ceramics, French and English furniture, silver and Chinese jade. The local exhibition will showcase only the most valuable pieces, the Impressionist paintings that form the centerpiece of the collection.

“This is a true Impressionist collection. It represents all of the Impressionist artists, most of them with very strong work,” said Diana D. Brooks, president of Sotheby’s North America. “You rarely see in one collection works by Renoir, Degas, Monet, Gauguin, Fantin-Latour--the whole gamut--and then continue into the 20th Century with Picasso and Matisse.”

Despite its wide range, the collection “fits together well” and shows a “consistency of taste,” Brooks said. One reason is that many of the works were screened by the eye of a single vendor. Dorrance bought most of the paintings from Nicholas and William Acquavella, at their Acquavella Galleries in New York, Brooks said.

The Van Gogh, “L’Homme est en Mer,” depicts a woman rocking her baby and gazing into a fire. The artist painted it in 1889, the year before his death, while incarcerated at a mental asylum in Saint-Remy. The 26x20-inch oil was done after a reproduction of a painting, probably sent to Van Gogh by his brother Theo. Van Gogh often worked from reproductions at Saint-Remy, but he interpreted loosely and added his own color. In October, 1989, he wrote to Theo, “I have copied that ‘Woman With a Child Sitting by a Hearth,’ by Mme. Dumont-Breton, almost all in violet. I am certainly going on copying, that will give me a collection of my own, and when this is large and complete enough, I shall give the whole to a school.”

“Meules, Effet de Neige, le Matin” is part of Monet’s renowned series of haystack paintings, depicting stacks of grain near his property at Giverny in different seasons and at various times of day. This particular canvas was painted on a winter morning in 1891.

Among the other top lots in the local exhibition are “Au Moulin Rouge,” a 1901 cabaret scene by Pablo Picasso, and Monet’s 1877 landscape, “La Berge a Argenteuil” (both valued at $6 million to $8 million). Another Monet landscape on view, “Bords de la Seine, un Coin de Berge,” is expected to bring between $5 million and $7 million. Two other paintings are each valued at $4 million to $5 million: “Danseuses” (circa 1895-1900), one of Edgar Degas’ trademark paintings of dancers, and Henri Mastisse’s “Femme a l’Ombrelle Rouge, Assise de Profil” (circa 1919-20), depicting a seated woman on a balcony, seen through the French doors of a Nice hotel room.

Dorrance, whose father, John T. Dorrance, invented condensed soup, was chairman of Campbell Soup Co. for 22 years before his retirement in 1984. He collected art over a period of about 30 years, acquiring most of his Impressionist pictures in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The collection has been well known in art circles. Dorrance was chairman of the Philadelphia Museum of Art at his death and he occasionally loaned works to traveling exhibitions. His Picasso, “Au Moulin Rouge,” was in the Museum of Modern Art’s massive Picasso retrospective in 1980 and Matisse’s “Femme a l’Ombrelle Rouge” appeared at the National Gallery’s 1986-87 exhibition, “Henri Matisse, the Early Years in Nice.”

Dorrance displayed most of his collection at his home in Gladwyne, Pa. He donated some works of art to the Philadelphia Museum of Art during his lifetime, but gave only a few ceramic pieces to the museum at his death, Brooks said. Except for those ceramics and some porcelains kept by family members, his entire collection will go on the block in October.

The exhibition at Sotheby’s, 308 N. Rodeo Drive, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today through Saturday and Monday and Tuesday; Sunday hours are 1 to 5 p.m. The show is the first event in Sotheby’s recently doubled exhibition space. The new galleries will be used for lectures, luncheons and dinners, as well as exhibitions, to more firmly establish Sotheby’s presence in Los Angeles, Brooks said.

After leaving Beverly Hills, the Dorrance preview will travel to Paris, Zurich, Tokyo and Philadelphia. The entire collection will go on view in New York a few days before the mid-October auction.