An Actual Bargain
Watching the sales, it was easy to get jaded as record followed record. If a work didn’t sell for multiples of its high estimate, it felt disappointing. So when Pierre Bonnard’s Boulevard des Batignolles, estimated to sell for $800,000 to $1.2 million, sold for just $250,000, it was genuinely shocking. That’s particularly true when it comes to this work, which Rockefeller bought in 2006 for $856,000. Whoever bought it, in other words, paid less than a third of what Rockefeller had paid—more than a decade later.
Bowled Away
Before the sale, Christie’s representatives had spoken of a strong level of interest from Asian bidders. Without knowing just how many lots sold to people in the region, numerous lots that would appeal to Asian buyers skyrocketed past their original estimates. For instance, a blue and white bowl from the Chinese Xuande period (1426-1435), which the Rockefellers had kept in their house in Maine, carried a high estimate of $150,000 and sold for $2.8 million.
Porcelain Mania
Meissen figurines were sought-after for centuries for their delicacy, inventive design, and craftsmanship, and Rockefeller collected dozens. This pair of hoopoes from 1740 was particularly desirable, given its pre-Rockefeller provenance: Once owned by Catalina von Pannwitz, a very wealthy woman of Jewish descent who married into the Prussian nobility, it was subsequently purchased by oil executive Charles Wrightsman, who donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum subsequently sold it to Laurance Rockefeller. After his death in 2004, it was acquired by his brother, David. That was apparently a sufficiently glamorous pedigree for someone who bid the figurines up past their $30,000 high estimate. The total: $175,000.
American History X (10)
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) painted more than 100 portraits of George Washington. His methodology consisted of making a single portrait, then painting several exact copies of that portrait, and then starting a new series based on a new original. Each series of Washington portrait by Stuart is known by the name of the original portrait’s owner. (If you’re still following this, you deserve a prize.) This portrait, made in 1795, was part of the so-called Vaughan series (named after the first painting’s owner, John Vaughan), and is arguably Stuart’s most famous. Rockefeller’s painting carried a high estimate of $1.2 million and sold for nearly 10 times that amount, totaling, with premium, $11.6 million.
A Very Expensive Surrey
Rockefeller was known to drive a horse and carriage for fun around his estate in Westchester, and several of the buggies and surreys he used came up to auction. The estimates were admittedly almost absurdly low; this one, from the late 19th or early 20th centuries, carried a high estimate of $2,500. Even so, its total of $81,250 is surprising. That’s a 3,100 percent increase.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.