The 15 sales Christie’s conducted on behalf of the Ann and Gordon Getty Collection over the past year appeared to prove that enthusiasm endures for fine and decorative arts from the 18th century onward.
A series of auctions of more than 2,300 art and objects achieved in excess of US$200 million, Christie’s said in a news release. The first part of the collection sold in October 2022 realized more than US$150 million, and this past June, the Temple of Wings collection totaled another US$21.9 million.
Proceeds from all the sales will benefit a range of California-based arts and science charities supported by the Gettys.
The most recent offerings were from Wheatland, a walnut farm outside Sacramento, Calif., that was Ann Getty’s childhood home. Ann, an interior designer and philanthropist, who died in September 2020, had transformed the property into what Christie’s described as “her own rendition of the English country house.”
Two live sales and one online sale of objects from Wheatland ended this past Friday and realized a total of nearly US$9.9 million. In a news release, Gordon Getty, a classical music composer and son of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, said his wife “was a passionate collector, and her legacy and artistic patronage will live on through these objects.”
Among them was an early George III ebony and Chinese reverse-painted mirror bookcase, circa 1760, which sold last Wednesday for US$756,000, with fees—more than two times a US$300,000 low estimate, Christie’s said. A “massive” pair of Chinese export reverse-painted mirrors from the Qing Dynasty, Qianlong period, in the late 18th century, realized US$403,200, above a US$150,000 low estimate.
Another highlight was Maurice Brazil Prendergast’s Snowy Day, Boston, circa 1907-10, which sold on Thursday for US$252,000, above a US$70,000 low estimate, to the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.
According to Christie’s, the series of successful auctions “demonstrated the strength of the decorative arts market.” It cited previous strong sales, including an early George III mahogany china cabinet by William Vile, which achieved US$2.7 million, and a set of 12 German-painted panels that realized nearly US$2.3 million. The top lot of the Temple of Wings auction was Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s A Coign of Vantage, which fetched US$7 million, with fees, more than double a US$2.5 million low estimate.
One reason for the strength of the Getty collection auctions was the interest of a number of arts organizations in the art and objects. Mary Cassat’s Young Lady in a Loge Gazing to Right, circa 1878-70, a work on paper sold for more than twice a low estimate for a record US$7.5 million to the Pola Museum of Art in Hakone, Japan, at an evening sale in New York a year ago. Just before that auction, Christie’s withdrew a star lot: Venice, the Grand Canal looking East with Santa Maria della Salute, by Italian Venetian-school painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, and sold it privately to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
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