Christie’s Rockefeller Auction Becomes the Most Valuable Single-Owner Private Sale in American History

The Rockefeller Family Art Auction Will Likely Go Down as the Largest Private Sale in American History

It’s already being called the sale of the century. After the death of David Rockefeller— remembered for, among other acts, his pivotal role in rebuilding Wall Street during the 1950s and ’60s; spearheading the international expansion of one of the world’s largest banks; and acting as chairman of Rockefeller University, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Museum of Modern Art—in March 2017, his family, long considered one of America’s most influential (in no small part due to their charitable gifts and philanthropic initiatives), decided that his and his wife Peggy’s art collection would be put up for private sale at Christie’s auction house, with all proceeds donated to charity.

On Tuesday evening the auction, which already marked a historic moment for the art world, became the most valuable private sale of all time, besting the record previously held by the Yves Saint Laurent Collection, which, in 2009, yielded a grand total of $484 million for works owned by the iconic French designer. That night Christie’s released the sale total (including the buyer’s premium) for the 19th- and 20th-century paintings: It was $646,498,750. The 2,000 or so pieces in the collection will be auctioned over a four-day in-person and online event; they span Impressionist and Post-Impressionist American and European paintings, antique furniture, Asian works of art, European ceramics, Chinese export porcelain, silver, and American decorative arts. (The most lucrative single auction sale, however, still stands at $852.8 million, a record held by Christie’s New York in its November 2014 postwar and contemporary art sale.)

Understandably, the sale has the art universe buzzing, with buyers expressing interest from all corners of the world. At least a dozen of Christie’s biggest Chinese clients—who only purchase art by the most widely known names, and who typically do their bidding only by phone—flew in for the occasion. But the appeal isn’t just the art itself, notes Rebecca Wei, president of Christie’s Asia: “[Clients] are fascinated by the Rockefeller name.” Though the collection boasts a number of exceptional artworks, including a painting by Henri Matisse that Christie’s hails as “the most important work by the artist to be offered on the market in a generation,” they make up only part of the draw. The other half, in many ways, is to experience how the Rockefellers lived, how they maintained their wealth, and how, over time, they built a world-class art collection. It makes sense; for the Rockefellers, wealth and art went hand in hand, and in his memoir, David Rockefeller wrote expressly about the link between the two. “Business should support the art of today as the Medici of Florence did,” he posited.

The aforementioned Matisse—Odalisque Couchée Aux Magnolias, painted in 1923, and auctioned off on Tuesday for $80,750,000, some $10 million above its high estimate, to a bidder on the phone with the deputy chairman of Christie’s Asia—is only one of the pieces that has shattered estimates and captivated viewers. Paul Gauguin’s La Vague is thought to be one of the most original seascapes in Western art; it sold for $35,187,500. Georges Seurat’s La Rade de Grandcamp was the family’s introduction to the Pointillist style and a key work in the founding of Neo-Impressionism; it went for $34,062,500 to Gary Tinterow, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Joan Miró’s Mural I, Mural II, Mural III sold for $20,009,000. Picasso’s Fillette à la Corbeille Fleurie was painted during the peak of the artist’s Rose Period and was beloved by Gertrude Stein, who called it a “charming thing, a lovely thing, a perplexing thing”; it garnered $115 million on Tuesday. Gauguin’s Fleurs Dans un Vase realized $19,437,500—some $12 million over the high estimate—while Claude Monet’s Nymphéas en Fleur set a new world auction record for the artist when it sold for $84,687,500 after a five-bidder contest won by Xin Li Cohen, deputy chairman of Christie’s Asia, who was bidding for a client on the phone. The excitement for the sale extends, too, past the most precious pieces and into the idea of owning a bit of American history: a money clip, estimated between $800 and $1,200, racked up $26,000 after more than 50 bids; a pair of three-inch porcelain tigers, estimated, on the high end, at $500, is already going for 10 times that.

Ultimately, it seems the Rockefellers’ hopes for the collection are well on their way to being realized. “Eventually all these objects that have brought so much pleasure to Peggy and me will go out into the world and will again be available to other caretakers who, hopefully, will derive some satisfaction and joy from them as we have,” David Rockefeller told the auction house in a statement before his death. As for its ultimate value, Christie’s remains firm that broken records or no, it’s about more than eye-popping sums. “You can’t calculate it,” deputy chairman Jonathan Rendell told Bloomberg News. “The Rockefellers are almost American royalty.”