SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898), born in Lyon and deceased in Paris, renewed decorative painting through simplified compositions and a meditative atmosphere. His work combines easel paintings with extensive ensembles intended for architectural settings. For the staircase of Lyon’s Musée des Beaux-Arts, he painted canvases that were subsequently attached to the walls.
The Sacred Grove, Beloved of the Arts and Muses (1884) gathers idealised figures in a twilight landscape, giving art a timeless setting. The Poor Fisherman (1881), in the Musée d’Orsay, instead depicts destitution through a widowed father and his children. Its reduced perspective and deliberately limited modelling provoked controversy, but its spare treatment attracted the attention of Seurat, Gauguin and Maurice Denis.
This profile brings together identity references for Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer · Piguet · Dobiaschofsky · Zofingen
References include catalogue entries and available results; they do not all represent completed sales. Attributed works and special lots are excluded from the priced results.
Gouache on paper
Étude pour Sainte Geneviève en prière
Gouache auf Papier
Catalogue period : 2025-04-02
Published result : 29708 CHF
Including buyer’s premium
Estimate : CHF 8000–12000
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Charcoal
Etude pour la fresque de la bibliothèque de Boston,
fusain
Catalogue period : 2018-03-14
Published result : 1900 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 1000–1500
View the lot at the auction house ↗These references are shown separately because of their attribution or lot composition. Each record states the reason.
Red chalk on paper.
Attribué à Puvis de Chavannes Pierre — Trauernde Gruppe um eine Tote / Kompositionsskizze (Recto/Verso)
Rötel auf Papier
Zugeschrieben
Catalogue period : 2025-06-07
Attributed
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : CHF 400
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Oil on canvas
Suiveur de PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES — Les baigneurs (scène mythologique).
Öl auf Leinwand
Nachfolger
Catalogue period : 2020-11-06
Follower of
Published result : 7000 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 10000
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
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