CHRISTIE’S TO AUCTION $150 MILLION BRODY COLLECTION; PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT HUNTINGTON LIBRARY

After a four-month battle between the auction giants Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the art collection of the Los Angeles philanthropist Frances Lasker Brody will be sold at Christie’s in New York in May, reports the New York Times. Valued at well over $150 million, it includes a 1932 painting by Picasso, Nu au plateau de sculpteur (Nude, Green Leaves and Bust), that is considered a seminal work from one of the high points of that artist’s career. Also coming to auction are rare examples by Giacometti, Matisse, and Braque.

Christie’s was able to wrest the collection from Sotheby’s by offering the estate a guarantee, an undisclosed sum promised to the sellers regardless of the outcome of the sale. Since the economy tanked in 2008, the auction houses have for the most part stopped offering sellers such financial incentives. It is believed that a third party has helped finance this guarantee.

Because Brody was passionate about gardens, some of the sale’s proceeds are to go to the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, where she was on the board of overseers.