NEW YORK CITY — Christie’s has announced a dedicated auction on October 27 of English furniture and decorative arts from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Titled Property of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: American Collecting in the English Tradition, the sale will comprise more than 200 lots of English furniture, porcelain and silver that have been de-accessioned in anticipation of a complete refurbishment of the museum’s Annie Laurie Aitken and Heathcote Galleries, which display the museum’s British decorative arts collection. Proceeds of the sale will benefit future acquisitions of British decorative arts that will complement the museum’s existing holdings and reinforce the new visual narrative planned for the galleries.

Highlights: George II giltwood mirror, circa 1730, which bears the arms of Sir George Bowes, ancestor of the Earls of Strathmore and “the Queen Mum” (Queen Elizabeth I, wife of George IV) ($25/40,000); and George II mahogany desk, circa 1755, which is reputed to have belonged to the Dukes of Wellington at Apsley House ($40/60,000).

Dozens of pieces of furniture can be acquired in the $500-$,000 estimate range, while the more significant examples run from $20,000-$100,000. Lot offerings range from Seventeenth Century Jacobean oak coffers to Eighteenth Century walnut and mahogany seat furniture— much with colorful needlework covers— to a Nineteenth Century regency sofa table with lion-mask corners.