A few weeks back, an auction at Christie’s in New York raised the highest-ever total for a private collection: $832,573,469, from more than 1,500 lots from the estate of Peggy and David Rockefeller.
Among its sales were a Monet ($84,687,500) and a Matisse ($80,750,000), a record for both artists, a Diego Rivera, whose price of $9,762,500 was a record for Latin American art, and a $115 million Picasso.
On Saturday, June 2, a smaller auction will take place at Nadeau’s Auction Gallery in Windsor: all of Peggy and David Rockefeller’s possessions that Christie’s considered too small to bother with.
“The Christie’s sale was crazy. It was fun to see it,” said Edwin J. Nadeau Jr., president of the auction house. “We’re excited to bring this sale to Connecticut.”
No Monets, Matisses or Riveras are to be found at Nadeau’s Rockefeller sale, which comprises 630 lots. There are three Picassos, all aquatints showing various stages of a bullfight. They are expected to go for a relatively modest $5,000 to $10,000, the highest pre-sale estimates in the auction.
Bragging rights for the Nadeau items are low-key compared to the Christie’s stuff. There is, however, that name. Rockefeller has been synonymous with American wealth and luxurious living for 150 years. The chi-chi provenance may be a good enough reason for many to turn up and place a bid.
The Rockefeller name can be seen on many items in the sale, engraved into silver platters or crystal paperweights, marked with inventory labels on the back of paintings and prints, handwritten by authors of books given to the famous family. Some were owned both by David Rockefeller and, previously, by his brother, former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.
Many items look the same as things found in any home: coffee makers, patio furniture, wastepaper baskets, a bathroom scale, fireplace tools, a boot scraper, software instruction manuals, many, many books. Want to tell your houseguests that the plain white bathroom towels covering their nudity once covered the nudity of a Rockefeller? Have at it. The pre-sale estimate for the linen set is $50 to $150.
These workaday items sit alongside pieces that more solidly reflect a family with money to spend and worshipful, generous acquaintances.
A sterling silver match safe is engraved “DR The White House 5-13-63,” a gift from President Kennedy six months before he was assassinated. A 1990 Rokuro Ichimura chrome sculpture is engraved “To Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller In Honor of Their Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary.” A Steuben crystal bowl is marked “David Rockefeller, Man of the Year, March 23, 1998.” A medal has a note attached: “We the Emperor of Japan, do hereby confer upon Mr. David Rockefeller, a citizen of the United States of America, the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure.”
Many artworks are for sale. In addition to those Picasso aquatints, pieces include paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, including multiple works by Toko Shinoda, Mitsuo Kano, Isao Ikegami, Hiromitsu Takahashi, Utagawa Hiroshige, Tony Fitzpatrick, Margaret Wentworth Millard and Clifton Karhu, as well as four c-prints by Michael Wesely showing the Museum of Modern Art in New York under construction.
Some items stand out in their beauty or goofiness: a mother-of-pearl encrusted book signed by Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan; a recumbent adult tricycle; an 88-piece set of intensely yellow 19th-century glass tableware; gift-wrapped books nobody bothered to open; a lovely black onyx bowl with silver dancing figures; bottles of cologne, half-used; a blue plate carved by artist Carlos Páez Vilaró.
Nadeau said many pre-auction estimates are quite low. “These gold cufflinks with the Chase Manhattan symbol are listed as $200 to $400,” he said. “Christie’s had a lot of cufflinks, and they sold for anywhere from $3,000 to $21,000.”
THE ROCKEFELLER AUCTION will be June 2 at 11 a.m. at Nadeau’s Auction Gallery, 25 Meadow Road in Windsor. A wine-and-cheese preview will be May 31 from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Other previews will be May 30 and 31 from noon to 4 p.m., June 1 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and June 2 from 9 to 11 a.m., or by appointment. nadeausauction.com.
