‘Almost Mythical’ Private Art Collection May Sell For Half a Billion Dollars
“For decades the Blaquier-Arrieta collection has been the stuff of legend: whispered about, kept from public view, it has attained an almost mythical status in the art world.”
Twelve Impressionist and modern masterpieces from the collection of the Argentinian collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier, who died in 2020, are heading to auction on 18 November in New York.
After at least five decades hidden away, these spectacular works of art are expected to fetch around $500m in total, and have just gone on display at Sotheby’s in London before being flown to Taipei, then Hong Kong and Paris before the auction in NYC.
Simon Shaw, a senior art adviser at Sotheby’s, said the collection felt “like a small museum - a miniature Musée d’Orsay, now opening its doors for the very first time”. Hardly surprising when you discover what the paintings include.
Star of the show (at least in monetary terms) is Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Tree in Flower), painted in May 1890 by Vincent Van Gogh with a value of $180m; Paul Cézanne’s Harlequin, painted in the late 19th century and valued at $150m; plus ten other significant works by Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Alfred Sisley, André Derain, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Maurice de Vlaminck.
Claude Monet’s Le Jardin des Tuileries Paul Cézanne’s Arlequin Fleurs dans une coupe by Paul Gauguin
Click to enlarge | All images credit: Sotheby’s New York/Blaquier-Arrieta collection
No wonder an expert described the collection as “one of the last great private collections of impressionist and post-impressionist art."
