The Maîtres anciens : Peintures - Sculptures sales reached €30,503,070, a record for Old Masters at Christie’s in Paris.

On June 12, the Paris auction included a rich array of paintings and sculptures spanning five centuries of European art. The highlight of the sale was Le Melon entamé, a masterpiece by Jean Siméon Chardin from the Marcille and Rothschild collections. Le Melon entamé was sold for €26,730,000, making it the most expensive work sold in France in 2024, and setting a new world record for a work by the artist, as well as for an 18th-century French painting. This work was offered alongside a recently rediscovered painting by Anne-Louis Girodet, L'Odalisque, which reached €378,000, multiplying its high estimate by 3. During the Paris auction, the Musée Ingres in Montauban preempted an oil on canvas, pen and brown ink by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, representing a study for the Christ Child of the Vow of Louis XIII in Montauban Cathedral. Among the other highlights of the sale, an oil on canvas by Hubert Robert depicting figures in an antique gallery was sold for €226,800, more than 5 times its low estimate.