Among the Vérités, a passion for native art and archeology was passed down through the generations. It all began with the painter Pierre Vérité (1900-1992) in the 1920s, when he acquired his first African art object and decided to begin selling similar works to feed his family. He opened his first gallery in Paris with his wife Suzanne in the 1930s, then, in 1937, opened the Carrefour gallery. Contemporary artists such as Pablo Picasso, Helena Rubinstein, Josef Mueller and André Breton appeared there, as well as a circle of amateurs and collectors of tribal art and archeological items.
Pierre Vérité’s son Claude (1928-2018) and his daughter-in-law Jeanine (1928-) joined him and Suzanne in the 1950s, transforming the company into a real family venture. Father and son alternated salons and exhibitions, while also travelling across Europe in search of African and Oceanic art, works from the Far East, classical archeology, and religious art. While their galleries quickly gained notoriety, the family’s private collection became ever more shrouded in secrecy. The Vérités acted with the utmost discretion, adding to their precious body of work without ever exposing themselves. In 1990, at the end of his life, Pierre even stated in an interview that he had no collection at all.
After the death of Pierre, Claude and Jeanine took control of the gallery, juggling a cast of merchants, collectors and partners with brilliance, as Pierre and Suzanne had done before them. Jeanine photographed and documented the collection, and these photos (which will accompany the objects at the sale) testify to the collaboration between the couple.
The Vérité name has already hit the auction houses: in 2006, part of the native arts collection was dispersed, then in 2011 part of the archeology collection found eager buyers. Following the death of Claude in 2018, this upcoming sale brings together the last works from the archeology collection; pieces that are the ultimate fragments of an intimate family collection, which was carefully built for two generations.
The catalogue of 189 lots at HVMC includes remarkable sculptures, amulets, Egyptian sarcophagi, marbles, Greco-Roman bronzes and several works from the Near and Middle East. Especially notable is the lid of a Egyptian sarcophagus dating from the first century. It depicts a woman with juvenile features, characterised by large almond eyes underlined in black and wearing a wig adorned with a vulture, probably the goddess Nekhbet.
There is also a man’s head in alabaster from the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, and a bronze statue of Isis Lactans as well as a Thoth/Ibis statuette that both date to the 26th Dynasty. As far as Greco-Roman art, vessels and several statuettes of deities, including a beautiful set of representations of Venus, will be presented.
The lots will be accompanied by the archives patiently gathered by Jeanine, which will allow fans with a passion for history to relive the sale. It is suspected that this auction contains the last treasures from the Vérité family vaults, so it is a bittersweet farewell to an extensive and spectacular collection that will never be paralleled.
