Apparently, he had inspired moments. His view of swallows in flight, in the form of a fan, done in gouache, is astonishingly modernist and yet deeply romantic all at once. Influenced by Japanese woodblocks, Buhot has entirely rethought whatever he borrowed from the Far East. A wonderful sketch in wash and black chalk done by Jongkind in 1876 suggests that in some cases this was a regrettable oversight. A small hearse appears in the midst of a broad Paris avenue on a bleak windy day.
Tiny figures stand around the hearse.
Agnew's of London, hardly branded as a hotbed of revolutionary aesthetics, brought over a small gem - a newly discovered study of flowers in oil on paper by John Constable. It adds one more to the 12 hitherto recorded. Two butterflies rest on the flowers. Underneath the tablet the head of an angel, which supports it like some bracket, smiles with delight into the darkness. Here, the dealers beat any auction by far, even if in some cases they do so by creaming the best of auctions.