: The much-heralded auction of The Bill Blass Collection concluded
October 23 at Sotheby's with a total of $13,619,606.
Collectors, designers and art and antiques dealers, as well as
friends and admirers of Blass, competed for a piece of the
designer's legacy, driving the total to more than double the $6/4
million high estimate, with 99 percent of the lots offered sold.
The results reflected the unerring taste of the arbiter of
American style who died last year at the age of 79.
The proceeds of the sale will go to benefit the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and the New York Hospital AIDS Care Center.
"What a great privilege it was to sell Bill Blass's Collection.
He was a wonderful and generous man and I only wish I had known
him better," commented Jamie Niven, vice chairman of Sotheby's
and auctioneer for the sale. "His impeccable eye as a collector
was evident throughout, and the collectors and admirers responded
with great enthusiasm from the opening of the reception to the
very last session of the auction."
The sale offered Blass's exceptional and broad ranging collection
of antiquities, English furniture, Old Master drawings,
architectural models and drawings and other fine and decorative
arts from both his house in Connecticut and apartment in New
York.
Bidding was fierce across the board, with a pair of Russian
ormolu and bronze two-light wall lights, circa 1880, attributed
to the Kasli Foundry, bringing the top price of the collection.
Estimated to sell for $20/30,000, collectors entered a brisk
bidding battle driving the price for these whimsical bears, which
once adorned the wall of Blass's bedroom in New York, to
$321,600.
During the evening sale on Tuesday, a marble portrait head of
man, Roman Imperial, late First Century BC/early First Century
AD, brought the top price of the session, $209,600, against a
high estimate of $120,000 and Isamu Noguchi's "Cross Form,
Beginning Dance" from 1955-1958 sold for $153,600, well above the
$80,000 high estimate. Taking center stage in the large-scale
living room of Blass's New York apartment was a pair of Regency
and parcel-gilt daybeds, circa 1810, at $164,800, well above the
$30/50,000 estimate.
Also impressive was a fine and rare Regency gilt metal mounted
writing and reading stand, circa 1810, which almost certainly was
formerly in the speaker's house in the Palace of Westminster in
London, that sold for $108,000 ($40/60,000); and a study for
Perseus from the Perseus series, "Atlas Turned to Stone," a
gouache, ink and wash on brown paper by Sir Edward Coley
Burne-Jones, brought $142,400 ($25/35,000).
Blass filled his home with a vast, eclectic collection of
eye-catching pieces, ranging from an Italian blue and white
painted wood architectural model that sold for $102,000
($20/30,000) to a large patinated bronze rendition of Napoleon's
column. This reduction of the celebrated monumental bronze,
erected to the glory of Napoleon I in the Place Vendome, Paris,
sold for $176,000 ($15/20,000).
Roman Imperial marble head of a man, $209,600.
Additionally, the Austrian neoclassical mahogany circular
library table, circa 1820, and the set of six Continental
neoclassical mahogany and fruitwood side chairs, circa 1830, from
Blass's dining room each sold for $84,000 ($20/30,000 each).
Many lots throughout the sale sparked heated competition that
drove the selling price to multiples of the presale estimates.
Designs for the Outer Compartments of the Wellington Shield: ten
drawings by Thomas Stothard estimated at $30/40,000, were
competed for by multiple bidders and sold for $114,000. A William
and Mary oyster-veneered laburnum linen chest on stand,
$12/18,000, brought $84,000, and an unusual silvered-metal and
petrified wood table in the form of a tree trunk, one of Blass's
favorite pieces and estimated at $7/9,000, brought $66,000.
Three additional works of art from the collection are being
offered in other Sotheby sales. Pablo Picasso's "Nu Couche," a
black chalk on canvas drawing ($5/7 million), was offered during
an evening sale of Impressionist and modern art on November 5;
Claudio Bravo's "White Package," an oil on chipboard
($90/120,000) will be with Latin American art on November 19; and
a large-scale trompe l'oeil painting by Jacobus Biltius
($150/200,000) with important Old Master paintings on January 22.
