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Anonymous ID: adbe18 Sept. 9, 2023, 4:37 a.m. No.19517103   🗄️.is 🔗kun

LOST OUR LEASE EVERYTHING MUST GO!

 

‘No price is too high for the acquisition of true masterpieces,’ wrote Baron James Mayer de Rothschild in 1855. The patriarch of the French branch of the dynastic Rothschild family, James was a scholarly and insatiable connoisseur whose private collection was one of the most esteemed of his era. Along with his wife, Betty, and later his son Alphonse, James developed a museum’s worth of art and objects that he meticulously displayed throughout his many residences.

 

This October, Christie’s in New York will host the first-ever North American auction of objects from the Rothschild family. Across three live sales on 11, 12 and 13 October and a concurrent online auction, over 600 lots from the collection will be offered.

 

James’s ambitions were reflected in the splendour of his many properties. The one most emblematic of his status was Château de Ferrières, a sprawling estate east of Paris. Designed by the architect Joseph Paxton, known for the Crystal Palace in London, Ferrières was a lavish manor rendered in the Neo-Renaissance style. It boasted eighteen suites of apartments on the second floor, an opulent front hall inspired by the Doge’s Palace in Venice and a railway that brought food from the kitchen to the dining hall. Throughout the château’s many rooms were objects from the family’s ever-growing collection. The property was donated by the Rothschilds to the French government in 1975.

 

Their residence in Paris, Hôtel de Talleyrand, was another emblem of James’s wealth, and many of the objects that will come to auction in October adorned its rooms. The historic palace was built between 1767 and 1769 for Louis Phélypeaux, Comte de Saint-Florentin, who served as a State Secretary and was an influential friend of King Louis XV. Today, it houses the United States Embassy in Paris and was the headquarters for The Marshall Plan.

 

Left Detail of an Italian rock crystal and embossed giltcopper mirror, late 17th century. 56 in (142 cm) high, 55 in (140 cm) wide. Estimate $150,000-250,000; Center Detail of a pair of late Louis XV ormolu-mounted, brass-inlaid, Japanese lacquer and Ebony meubles à hauteur dappui, c. 1765-70. 40¼ in (122.5 cm) high, 36¼ in (92 cm) wide, 17¼ in (44 cm) deep,. Estimate

Left: Detail of an Italian rock crystal and embossed giltcopper mirror, late 17th century. 56 in (142 cm) high, 55 in (140 cm) wide. Estimate: $150,000-250,000; Center: Detail of a pair of late Louis XV ormolu-mounted, brass-inlaid, Japanese lacquer and Ebony meubles à hauteur d'appui, c. 1765-70. 40¼ in (122.5 cm) high, 36¼ in (92 cm) wide, 17¼ in (44 cm) deep,. Estimate: $300,000-500,000; Right: Detail of a Louis XV patinated-bronze and ormolu mantel clock 'à l'éléphant,' mid-18th century. 28½ in (73 cm) high, 22 in (56 cm) wide, 14 in (36 cm) deep. Estimate: $70,000-90,000. All offered in Rothschild Masterpieces on 11 October 2023 at Christie's in New York

‘There’s this idea of sumptuous domesticity,' says Rendell of the Rothschild taste, which combined extravagance and modern convenience. ‘You enter a house that is also like a museum, but it’s full of comfortable chairs. Everywhere you look there are great things.’

 

Items of the utmost rarity

As a collector, James was drawn to items of supreme rarity, such as a series of gilded leather panels depicting The Triumph of David that were built for the palatial residence of Schloss Weißenstein. The collection was also replete with wonders from around the globe, from Maiolica porcelain by the celebrated painter Francesco Xanto to a 17th-century Medallion Ushak carpet from the Ottoman Empire.

 

https://www.christies.com/features/rothschild-collection-story-12850-3.aspx