Rayon de Soleil (Sunbeam) painted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1899 sold at Cowan’s Auctions for $1,102,500
The painting, titled Rayon de Soleil (Sunbeam) (1899), had not been seen publicly since it was sold between 1909 and 1910 for around $6,500 by Moulton and Ricketts to a buyer in Elkhart, Indiana, and was passed on to his descents. It was offered at Cowan’s with a “conservative” estimate of $300,000 to $500,000.
Wes Cowan, the founder of Cowan’s Auctions, was tipped on to the whereabouts of the painting through a friend who messaged him about it on Facebook. He subsequently discovered the work “hanging in the parlour of a modest clapboard home”, according to a press release. “In a tremendous display of generosity, [the consigner of the painting is] planning on using proceeds from the sale to establish an endowment fund for students in her hometown,” Cowan added.
The painting is a something of a coup for the auction house, marking only the third work that it has sold for __more than $1m since it was founded in 1995. The next-highest lot in Fall Fine and Decorative Art auction was a landscape by the Russian artist Ivan Fedorovitch Choultsé that sold for $27,500 hammer ($33,000 with premium).