organized by the Hôtel des Ventes de Monte Carlo this Sunday 8 May. Indeed, only two unsold items in the chapter dedicated to 18th century furniture, an unprecedented result in a field that has been in decline in recent years. 270.000 euros for a pair of chests of drawers signed by cabinetmaker JH Riesener, won by a local buyer against an English amateur. 70.000 euros, almost double the estimate for a small lacquer chest of drawers stamped Dubois, for the benefit of a French industrialist. A Swiss collector accumulated the acquisition of 25 lots including an astonishing églomisé mirror from the Louis XIV period, sold for 29.500 euros. While an English bidder won the pair of Napoleon III chests of drawers by Charles Mellier, for 40.500 euros. A Monegasque national offered himself at 35 euros the small lacquered reading table marked by the cabinetmaker Roussel. And the Chinese amateurs, some of whom were present in the room, were fighting over, among other things, a porcelain vase with a curious bat decoration, estimated at a few thousand euros up to 000 euros.
The Hudson collection, from which Riesener's sideboards came, included this unusual and unprecedented landscape animated by cows by the English portrait painter Thomas Gainsborough, estimated at 150.000 euros by the expert Éric Turquin. At the end of a debate between 8 telephones, it ended its race again towards an English collector at triple its estimate or 455.000 euros. Absolute record for a rather atypical theme for this artist. Finally, the star painting of this auction, the canvas of the 17th century Spanish caravaggesque, Guiseppe Ribera representing Saint Thomas left for America at an auction of 420.000 euros. In the end two million euros of auction excluding costs and very few unsold.