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Auction PR Publicity Announcements News and Information

Sotheby’s to Auction Furniture & Decorative Arts from The Collection of Dodie Rosekrans

Sotheby’s New York will hold a sale, on 8 & 9 December 2011, dedicated to furniture and decorative arts from the collection of Dodie Rosekrans, a figure who was known internationally for her considerable charitable work, trendsetting style and patronage of the arts.


Collection of Dodie Rosekrans Photo: Sotheby’s.

Property from the Collection of Dodie Rosekrans will offer pieces from Mrs. Rosekrans’s residences in San Francisco, Paris and Venice. The auction will be on exhibition in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning 3 December, and follows the May 2011 sale of Modern and Contemporary art from Mrs. Rosekrans’s collection – highlighted by works from Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.

Dodie Rosekrans
A celebrated philanthropist, style icon and collector, Dodie Rosekrans was known internationally both for her sense of adventure and unfailingly generous spirit. A trailblazer and trendsetter in fashion, the arts and society, she made a name for herself in each of the cities in which she lived with her late husband John Rosekrans: San Francisco – where she was born to Michael Naify, founder of the movie chain that became United Artists Communications – Paris and Venice. Mr. and Mrs. Rosekrans’s charitable contributions were numerous, highlighted by their efforts to support the museums of San Francisco and Paris, the latter of which earned Mrs. Rosekrans France’s Légion d’Honneur.

“Dodie was simply blessed with a great eye,” commented Charles Moffett, Sotheby’s Vice Chairman. “Her eclectic tastes and interests were not bounded by strictures, regulations, or other people’s values. She could always discern what was special, lively, and lovely, often in the most idiosyncratic ways. Whether collecting couture, Old Master, Modern or Contemporary paintings, decorative arts, or jewelry, the common threads were freshness, character, and, above all, quality.”

Property from the Collection of Dodie Rosekrans – 8 & 9 December 2011
The furniture and decorations on offer this December come from Mrs. Rosekrans’s residence in San Francisco – designed by Michael Taylor – as well as her ‘Indian Jewel Box’ apartment in Paris and her palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice – both designed by Tony Duquette. The works cover a wide range of geographies and styles, from Asian, American Indian and Pre-Columbian art to Italian, French and English furniture and 20th Century Design, reflecting Mrs. Rosekrans’s ever-evolving curiosity about the world. Having only filled her homes with objects she truly loved, she assembled a Collection very much encompassing the tastes, trends and interests for which she was well known.

Furniture in the sale will feature pieces by French designer Claude Lalanne: both a Pair of “Crocodile” Armchairs from 1994 (est.$275/350,000*) and a “Crocodile Stool” circa 1994 (est. $100/150,000) are highly sought-after forms within the oeuvre of the Lalannes. Eighteenth-century designs from across Europe will be led by a Louis XV Ormolu-Mounted Chinese Lacquer and Ebonized Bureau Plat, circa 1750 (est. $250/350,000), a Genovese Baroque Parcel-Gilt, Black and Gilt Japanned and Polychrome-Decorated Bureau Cabinet, circa 1735 (est. $120/180,000), and Queen Caroline’s Coronation Chair: A Highly-Important George II Giltwood Armchair Attributed to Richard Robert, the Upholstery Attributed to Thomas Phill, circa 1727 (est. $250/350,000). Queen Caroline was King George II’s consort, and her coronation chair became part of the collection at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, where it remained until being sold in 1994.

Additional works demonstrating Mrs. Rosekrans’s eclectic and global tastes include a Marble Cuirassed Torso of an Emperor, Roman Imperial, Flavian Period, 3rd Quarter of the 1st Century A.D. (est. $150/250,000). A relief decoration on the lower part of the armor shows the tropaion, or trophy, a memorial which a Roman army would erect on a battlefield on the very spot where the enemy had turned to flee. A large group of highly decorative Chinese works of art – featuring lacquered furniture and screens, Han Dynasty pottery, Chinese export porcelain and jade and other hardstone carvings – will be led by a Large Brown Ground and Gilt-Decorated Lacquer Cabinet (Gui) from the 17th/18th century (est. $100/150,000). And an Urhobo Male Ancestor Statue of the Founder-Hero Owedjebo, standing more than six feet tall, is one of the most monumental examples of the edjo re akare (“spirits in carved form”) that commemorate semi-mythic village-founding warrior heroes of the Urhobo, who inhabit the western edge of the Niger Delta region in southern Nigeria (est. $100/150,000).

Additional Sales
Property from the Collection of Dodie Rosekrans will be offered in additional auctions at Sotheby’s New York in 2011 and 2012. Contemporary art from the Collection will be featured in the 9 & 10 November Contemporary Art Evening & Day Auctions, led by Keith Haring’s monumental sculpture Untitled from 1986 (est.$1/1.5 million). The cover lot of the 8 December Antiquities sale will be A Marble Head of Zeus Ammon, Roman Imperial, circa 120-160 A.D., one of the most striking and sensitively-carved known representations of the tutelary deity of Alexander the Great (est.$800,000/1.2 million). In January 2012, works from the Collection will highlight the auctions of Important Old Master Paintings & Sculpture and Important Old Master Drawings, led by an incredibly rare and important 15th century panel painting by Fra Bartolomeo. Works by this pivotal figure of the Florentine High Renaissance are very scarce on the market and Saint Jerome in the Wilderness is one of only a handful to ever appear on the auction market.

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