Christie’s has announced a dedicated auction on October 27 of English furniture and decorative arts from New York’s celebrated Metropolitan Museum of Art. Titled Property of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: American Collecting in the English Tradition, the sale is comprised of more than 200 lots of English furniture, porcelain and silver that have been deaccessioned 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.

The auction presents an opportunity to appreciate American taste for English interiors throughout the 20th century, and the seminal role the Museum played. It offers collectors an appealing range of estimates for objects of such distinguished history. Dozens of pieces of furniture can be acquired in the $500-5,000 estimate range, while the more significant examples run from $20,000-100,000.  Lot offerings range from 17th century Jacobean oak coffers to elegant 18th century walnut and mahogany seat furniture— much with colorful needlework covers— to a stylish 19th century Regency sofa table with lion-mask corners.

The provenances of many objects in the sale represent some of the greatest collectors of English furniture and silver such as the inveterate collector Judge Irwin Untermyer, whose generous gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art comprised 2,000 objects, many of which will remain on view in the refreshed galleries. Many of the works are attached with interesting histories, hailing from well-known early 20th century collections or country house origins, and many objects are featured in historical reference books including the Dictionary of English Furniture (1924) and the History of English Furniture (1904). The silver represents the greatest age of the London silver craft, with numerous objects from the 17th and 18th centuries. Collected by the same important connoisseurs as the furniture and silver, the English porcelain showcases objects from the premier manufacturers of the 18th and early 19th centuries - the work of Chelsea, Bow, Derby, Worcester and others paired with names like Untermyer, Cadwalader, Marquand, Rockefeller and Pratt.

Luke Syson, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chairman, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, comments on the current British galleries and future renovation, “This has been just the right moment thoroughly to reassess our British collections for the first time in half a century. In planning this sale, our key concern and challenge in deciding which pieces to retain, and which to liberate, has been to determine which pieces belong in a museum and which, on the contrary, would sing louder and better in someone’s home. We have considered what stories arise from which objects, and more practically how much space we will have in our galleries and indeed our storerooms. Moreover, as the Met’s collections have grown, some duplication has been inevitable. So this has also been the opportunity to identify gaps in our collection – for example in the nineteenth century, from the Regency to the Great Exhibition to Arts and Crafts Movement and Design Reform.”  

Public exhibition at Christie’s: October 22 - 26  

Related Sale Sale 3780