Canvas about the size of the label: Dali, Hockney and Koons draw for a French winery

In the village of Pauillac, a wine commune in Bordeaux, there’s an outstanding art collection. Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Dorothea Tanning, Francis Bacon, and David Hockney David - one of the most famous artists in the last 100 years - created their works on incredibly small canvas - the labels for the most expensive bottles of wines in the world.

Since 1945, the bottles of Château Mouton Rothschild vintages have featured a new artist-designed label each year. Bottles featuring a selection of these works will be sold at Sotheby's auctions in Hong Kong, London, and New York, with proceeds benefiting the restoration of the Palace of Versailles. Each of the 75 cases to be sold features five bottles of Mouton Rothschild with labels by artists: Italian artist and sculptor, representative of "Arte Povera", land art and conceptual art Giuseppe Penone (the 2005 vintage), French conceptual artist (2007), British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor (2009),  Jeff Koons (2010) and contemporary Japanese minimalist artist Lee Ufan (2013). The initial cost is about $ 4 000-20 000.

on the left – label of Jeff Koons, on the right – his work "Gazing Ball (da Vinci Mona Lisa)", Galerie de Bellefeuille

The winery’s tradition of commissioning artists for each of its labels didn’t begin in earnest until after World War II, but the idea began two decades earlier. In 1924, a 22-year-old Baron Philippe de Rothschild wanted to innovate the winemaking business and move away from traditional labels. When he took over the family business, he was also managing a theatre in Paris and asked the affichiste, the theatre’s poster artist, if he would be interested in contributing a design. The artist agreed. During the war, the Rothschilds, left France, and their mansion at Château Mouton Rothschild was occupied by German forces. Baron Philippe returned after serving in the war to find that the vineyard hadn't been damaged. He enthusiastically took up the revival of the winery and also returned to the idea of artist-designed labels. He always had the notion that art and wine were very closely related.

on The left – label of David Hockney, on the right his picture "Barry Humphries, 26th, 27th, 28th March 2015" from the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao

The baron’s second wife, Pauline, a writer and fashion designer, was friends with a number of artists—including Salvador Dalí (who designed a label in 1958), Henry Moore (1964), and Marc Chagall (1970)—and helped her husband secure an artist each year. In the 1980s, the baron’s daughter, Philippine, took the reigns of the business and the label designs.  An indomitable woman, she visited film director John Huston, even he initially declined, but she refused to leave until he changed his mind to participate in the project.  Following her death in 2014, her children, Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, his brother Julien and their sister Camilla, took over selecting the artists.

on The left – label of Francis bacon, on the right is his painting "Triptych in Memory of George Dyer" from Marlborough London

It is a complex process that starts anew every year. At first Philippe, Julien and Camilla study the works of artists, look at what they do, how they work, and then boil it down to a couple of names and get in contact with them Artists receive information about the vineyards, examples of past labels, and pictures of the objects in the winery’s museum (for example, the ancient Greek wine vessel and a 16th-century tapestry). However, the artist is responsible for the final result. For the 2010 label, Koons modified a Pompeian fresco depicting the birth of Venus, overlaying her with silver lines that form a chalice—a symbol of wine and femininity. Three years later, Ufan made a meditative crimson brushmark for his design, its simplicity belying the wine’s complex fruity and spicy flavour with notes of coffee beans, vanilla, and chocolate.

on the Left – the label by Anish Kapoor, on the right - his painting "1000 Names" from Galleria Continua

This collection is a kind of curatorial project of the Rothschild family. Family members deliberately do not focus on popular trends and tendencies and refer only to those artists who they love. Each work that becomes a label is exhibited in the château, in a gallery that opened in 2013. And what makes the collection so special, is not only the curatorial approach, but how varied the artists’ interpretations are, from Lucian Freud’s childlike zebra illustration (2006) to Prince Charles’s emotive watercolour pine trees (2004).

On the cover - label with a picture of Jeff Koons.