Alain Delon was also a big art collector. Here's what he bought

The Venice film art exhibition also paid tribute to Alain Delon: the mourning in the world of cinema is intergenerational and his figure will remain in the annals for his performances and the charm that helped build his myth. The French actor who died last Aug. 18 at the age of 88 liked to cultivate his passions by giving birth to a number of collections made famous for their intrinsic value and for the imprint made by Delon’s taste.

In his more than eighty years he collected cars, wines, weapons, watches and even works of art, collections from which he decided to dispose of while he was still alive, without waiting for his heirs to do so (“I hate posthumous sales. I prefer to leave the money to my children,” he said on one occasion). With artworks, he did it a first time in 2007 with about forty paintings from the 1950s purchased in the 1990s and sold for a total of 9 million euros: the collection included works by Hartung, Alechinsky, Dubuffet, Zao Wou-Ki. Then last year with an auction sale that was also very lucrative, double the initial revenue estimates. A posting, this one, that was like a final masterpiece of his career, to celebrate himself and the artists he loved and put together. The spectacular auction sale was entrusted to the prestigious Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr house in Paris-Alain Deloin was a world-renowned and international artist was the round of presentation wanted before the auctioning of the collection. The traveling exhibition to showcase the works toured 3 continents with stops in New York, Hong Kong, Geneva, London, Brussels and Paris, and ended on June 22, 2023 with proceeds of more than 8 million euros, far more than the 4/5 estimated at the beginning, selling 81 lots out of 83.

Alain Delon: 60 Years of Passion was the title of the auction, and the time reference is from the actor’s first purchase in London in 1969, at the age of 24 (at the time he was in a relationship with Romy Schneider, whom he met on the set of The Pure Lover): a drawing depicting a beetle by Albrecht Dürer from 1505, purchased for 700,000 francs (a figure that marked a world record for the purchase of a drawing), to which were added paintings, sculptures and other drawings placed between the Italian Renaissance and 19th-century French for six decades.

“Over the years,” Alain Delon said at the time, “I have acquired drawings, paintings, and sculptures that have moved me, spoken to me, and sometimes even consoled me. These works have accompanied me for many years and have been part of my life. There are two things I consider my legacy: my acting career and my art collection. I am very proud of both. People ask me if there is a common thread that ties these pieces together and I say, C’est moi.” This is how Alain Delon considered his art collection, on par with his stellar film career, enough to understand its value and the exploit of the sale’s countervalue compared to expectations. So much so that Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr’s president, Arnaud Cornette de Saint Cyr, declared at the time “it was an unprecedented success, grossing 8 million euros, more than double its minimum estimate. Alain Delon is a living legend of cinema. His taste and eye have been acclaimed all over the world. It was a great honor for Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr to present this sublime collection and it is not surprising that it attracted such passionate bidding at this exceptional sale.”

Delon’s acting career began in the late 1950s, but it was during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that he won audiences over in such films as Rocco and His Brothers (1960), The Leopard (1963), The Swimming Pool (1969), The Samurai (1967), Le Cercle Rouge (1970), Mr. Klein (1976) and Notre Histoire (1984) for which he won the French equivalent of an Oscar, the César Award for Best Actor. Delon worked with the leading directors of his time, including Luchino Visconti, Jean-Pierre Melville, Louis Malle, and Jean-Luc Godard. He was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1991 and was awarded a Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement in Berlin and a Palme d’Or for Lifetime Achievement at the Cannes Film Festival.

His collection put up for sale last year focused more on modern art, and the auction’s main lot was a painting by Raoul Dufy entitled La baie de Sainte-Adresse, from 1906, which sold for 1,016,400 euros. The initial sale estimate was 600-800,000 euros. The collection was rich in sculptural works and with a fine body of Italian Renaissance drawings and rare folios by the great French masters of the 19th century, masterpieces by artists such as Veronese, Beccafumi, Corot, Delacroix, Millet, Dufy, and Gleizes. But his was not a form of investment as much as it was personal passion accompanied by expertise and eye: “His instinctive eye,” said Arnaud Cornette de Saint Cyr in presenting the works, “guides him unerringly to masterpieces, from the earliest ancient drawings to the great modern masters. He ignores fashions; he listens only to his emotion, to the intimate dialogue that takes place with these great designers. This is also why he first loved drawing, the strength of the pure line, the closest thing to the artist’s thought and this creative outpouring. With patience, he brought together the greatest painters and sculptors through his choices.”

Among the notable sales was that for Eugène Delacroix’s Arabian Horse Tied to a Stake at €775.100, more than double the minimum estimate, and three works by Rembrandt Bugatti: a bronze statuette of a crouching Lioness that “demonstrates how the artist succeeded in capturing in bronze the beauty of animals and at the same time the sense of their vulnerability,” as the catalog read (estimated at €250,000-300,000, it sold for €533.800), and then a Panther sold for €508,400 and a Lion sold for €483 thousand. Also among the major works was a Landscape (1914-1915) by Albert Gleizes (1881-1953), "illustrating the new Cubist tendencies embraced by Gleizes after the publication in 1912 of his work Du Cubisme written together with Jean Metzinger." It sold for €356,000. Two works by Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) fetched high prices and surprised: a painting titled Paysannes au repos sold for €241,700 and La Laitière normande, a charcoal drawing estimated at between €100 thousand and €150 thousand, sold for €216,300. Likewise for a view of Genoa(Gênes, un bout de la ville et les Apennins, a delicate oil on canvas from 1834) by Camille Corot (1796-1875), which sold for 229 thousand euros, double the minimum estimate.

Eugène Delacroix ’s painting Cheval arabe attaché à un piquet (estimated between 400,000 and 600,000 euros was sold for 775,000 euros; the 16th-century pen-and-ink drawing by Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese, Saint George Slaying the Dragon estimated between 40,000 and 60,000 euros was fetched almost 83,000 euros. A landscape by Albert Gleizes (1881-1953). Painted in 1914-15, the work illustrates the new Cubist tendencies embraced by Gleizes after the 1912 publication of his work Du Cubisme, written with Jean Metzinger. Estimate: €200,000-300,000 sold for €356,000. A charcoal and chalk on paper by Degas with a dancer taken from behind sold for 191 thousand euros. Several works by Jan van Goyen (1596-1665) including two Winter Landscapes both sold for over 50 thousand euros.

Alain Delon was also a big art collector. Here's what he bought

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