Art treasures set new record
Proceeds of Rockefeller auction will go to charity.
Peggy and David Rockefeller’s lavish artworks and other treasures set a world record this week at Christie’s of US$828 million ($1.188b) as the priciest ever single-owner collection.
That’s about twice the previous record of US$484m from a 2009 Paris sale of designer Yves Saint Laurent’s estate.
The late couple’s son, David Rockefeller jnr, said auction proceeds would go to charity.
The three-day sale ended with a US$115m star lot — a Picasso painting of a naked girl holding a basket of flowers that once belonged to writer Gertrude Stein.
The runner-up, at US$84m, was a Monet canvas that set a record for his art at auction against a previous high of US$81m.
The sale also set records for seven individual artists, including Matisse, whose Odalisque Couchee aux Magnolias sold for US$80.8m, a new record for the artist. Diego Rivera’s 1931 The Rivals sold for the highest ever for a Latin American artwork on the block — US$9.8m.
At the end of the sale anyone with a few hundred dollars could go for a piece of the opulence that surrounded the Rockefellers — by bidding on, say, cufflinks, jewellery and money clips once filled with cash from their fortune.
The 1564 lots reflected their eclectic tastes from fine furniture, porcelain and ceramics to duck decoys and blue-chip art that graced their various homes and David’s bank office. A rare blue and white “Dragon” bowl went for US$2.7m. A bronze figure of the Buddhist deity Amitayus realised US$2.5m. A 256-piece Sevres dessert service commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte sold for US$1.8m — more than six times its top estimate. Many buyers came from abroad, drawn to the power name that dominated New York’s privileged, philanthropic society for a century. Peggy died in 1996 and David in 2017, as the last surviving grandson of the oil baron John D. Rockefeller.