The Second Installment of the Collection of Ann and Gordon Getty Heads to Auction
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Last October, a portion of Ann and Gordon Getty's collection, which featured decorative arts, old-master works, furniture, porcelains, and more, sold at auction for over $150 million. Now, just less than a year later, a second installment is heading to Christie's in June.
While the premiere sale simply boasted the magnitude of their belongings, this sale hones in on the couple's affinity for the eclecticism of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Titled The Temple of Wings, the sale is rooted in and named after the couple's Greco-Roman style home in Berkeley, California. Within it is a manifestation of international taste: Tiffany Studio glass panes and lamps, Fortuny dresses, and William Morris rugs.
"Mrs. Getty combined her love of beautiful things and her academic interest in the late nineteenth century to furnish Temple of Wings, weaving together such disparate movements as Gothic and Arts and Crafts furniture and ceramics," Jonathan Rendell, Christie’s deputy chairman for the Americas, tells Town & Country.
There is a total of 60 lots of Tiffany Studios work, including Cypress Trees and Flowers (1908), a windowpane that depicts the bucolic landscape of Charles Rushmoore's home in Woodbury Falls, New York, and an ultra-rare Turtle-Back Tile chandelier (1910). The chief piece of the Tiffany Studios lot should be awarded to the Wisteria Table Lamp; not only was it exhibited at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco for Artistic luxury in May 2009, but is also a wonderful connection between the exterior and interior of the home.
"She played with the internal use of external motifs with naturalistic designs in the fabrics and in the naturalistic lamp bases to lead the eye from the inside of the house through the garden and down towards the bay and the distant view of her beloved San Francisco," Rendell says.
The William Morris hand-knotted Hammersmith rug and Mrs. Getty’s collection of Fortuny coats, throws, and dresses nod to a ceaseless love for both textiles and maximalist design.
"Venice was a constant in Ann Getty’s life, a city by the water echoing San Francisco. The extraordinary textiles and clothing by Fortuny were as central to the other themes in the house with Venetian gothic patterning and flattering lines, a rejection formality of early C20th clothing," Rendell says.
The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection: Temple of Wings will head to a live auction in New York on June 14, in addition to online sales. The proceeds will benefit selected arts and science organizations designed by the couple.
For more information, please visit Christies.com,
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