The dynamic fall–winter auction season continues: both family collections and newly discovered artifacts are coming up for sale.
Bonhams
Lady Glenconner: My Life in Objects
November 18, London
Just as the title of Lady Glenconner’s memoir — Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown — reflects the incredible decades this 93-year-old socialite spent at court, the set of her belongings at auction tells the story of her personal relationships with Britain’s leading figures. Among the lots, for example, are a gold Cartier box gifted to her by Queen Elizabeth II, their joint portraits by Cecil Beaton, a folding silver mirror presented by Elizabeth’s mother, as well as furniture and interior pieces made in royal workshops at various times.
Osenat
Tableaux Anciens
November 30, Fontainebleau
Jean-Pierre Osenat, the owner of the Paris auction house Osenat, has been remarkably fortunate: over the past ten years, he has acquired museum-level masterpieces — from a large pastel by Edgar Degas, once part of the Louvre collection, to still lifes by Chardin. Last year, while sorting through the contents of a family mansion in a bourgeois district of Paris, he discovered a painting, Christ on the Cross, which turned out to be a long-lost work by Peter Paul Rubens, missing for four centuries. A year was spent on restoration, laboratory analysis, provenance research, and authentication — the latter confirmed by renowned expert Nils Büttner. Now, this sizable work (105.5 × 72.5 cm) will be offered at public auction on November 30 at the firm’s Fontainebleau branch. The starting estimate is two million euros.
Artcurial
80 Years of ELLE: Celebrating Women in Art
November 14, Paris
The iconic French magazine ELLE — now a global brand and a pioneer in the women’s empowerment movement — celebrates its 80th anniversary this year. As a fashion and lifestyle publication that has always paid great attention to art, ELLE invited female artists from every continent to participate in a charity auction benefiting the international humanitarian organization CARE, which fights for women’s rights worldwide. Among the offerings are a sculpture by Joana Vasconcelos (€8,000), paintings by Mia Chaplin (€3,000) and Marion Charlet (€3,000), and works by Sasha Floch-Polyakoff, Ileana Magoda, and thirty more artists.
Sotheby’s
Leonard A. Lauder, Collector
November 18, New York
The passing of cosmetics magnate Leonard Lauder this summer caused quite a stir. The public was moved by the news of his gift to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art: the institution received the world’s largest collection of Cubist works — led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque — valued at one billion dollars and soon to go on display. Collectors and museum professionals, meanwhile, were abuzz about the sale of his major collection of top-tier European artists. Sotheby’s won the battle among auction houses for the right to sell it — the evening sale will inaugurate its new flagship building in New York.
The star of the collection, expected to fetch at least $150 million, is Gustav Klimt’s dazzling Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer. In addition, two magnificent Klimt landscapes, paintings by Edvard Munch and Picasso, and a collection of Henri Matisse bronzes — considered the largest in private hands — will also be offered.
Sotheby’s
The Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection
November 20, New York
Another great collection has likewise gone to Sotheby’s — the Impressionist and Modern holdings of Cindy and Jay Pritzker, founders of the influential Pritzker Prize. Among the announced highlights are Vincent van Gogh’s still life Yellow Books, Henri Matisse’s triptych Leda and the Swan, Wassily Kandinsky’s In Violet, and works by Gauguin, Pissarro, Vallotton, Miró, and others. The collection is expected to bring in no less than $120 million.
