American Sublime: Property from an Important Private Collection

Sale Overview

American Sublime: Property from an Important Private Collection is a single-owner auction comprised of masterworks by the most important artists in American history, from Thomas Cole to Childe Hassam. Leading the sale is Cole’s Mount Chocorua, New Hampshire of 1827, a painting that represents the pinnacle of achievement in Hudson River School painting and exemplifies the uniting quality throughout this magnificent collection: the sublime. Through the paintings of sweeping, rugged landscapes and remarkable luminist skies, this finely curated sale memorialises American artistic ideals of the sublime, glorious and transcendental over a 100-year pictorial history.

Among other key highlights of the auction is Winslow Homer’s Boy with Blue Dory, a masterful example in watercolour by America’s preeminent painter of 19th-century American life. Other rare and exceptional works include Raphaelle Peale’s Still Life with Raisin Cake, Martin Johnson Heade’s breathtaking River at Twilight and Sanford Robinson Gifford’s Civil War-era nocturne Camping for the Night on Mount. The collection also boasts striking examples of Impressionism by leading artists William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam and more.

Speaking to the extraordinary quality throughout, many of these works feature distinguished ownership history, from some of the most noteworthy institutional and private collections in the field, including the National Academy of Design, International Business Machines (IBM), 19th-century conservation leader Gifford Pinchot, the renowned Vanderbilt Family and the well-known Manoogian Collection of Michigan.

The preview exhibition will begin on 17 January at Rockefeller Center, alongside 19th Century American and Western Art.

Explore our auctions during Americana Week.

Auction times

23 Jan 10:00 AM (EST) Lots 201-243

Our specialist’s selection

Brought to you by

Paige Kestenman

Vice President, Senior Specialist | American Art

Paige Kestenman, a Specialist in Christie’s American Art department, is responsible for sourcing and sale curation for the American Art auctions in New York. Paige regularly provides clients with market updates, valuations and proposals for sale, and she works with a wide array of collectors on both auction and private sale acquisitions.

Since joining Christie’s in 2013, Paige has worked on several important consignments by American Modernist masters, including the world-record Abstraction by Marsden Hartley ($6.7 million), Edward Hopper’s Windy Day ($1.2 million) and Norman Lewis’s Street Scene (a record for a figurative work by the artist at $440,000). Other notable auction sales include Boston School Impressionist Frank Weston Benson’s The Reader ($2.9 million), iconic illustrator Norman Rockwell’s The Christmas Coach ($1 million) and Hudson River School painter Sanford Robinson Gifford’s Mansfield Nose ($519,000). Paige has also assisted clients with private treaty transactions for artists ranging from Rockwell, Milton Avery, Jacob Lawrence and Andrew Wyeth to John Singer Sargent and George Inness.

Paige earned her Masters in History of Art and Art World Practice: Art, Style and Design with Distinction from Christie’s Education London. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University with High Honors and is a member of the Sigma Xi Research Society and Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Quincie Dixon

Associate Specialist, Head of Sale | American Art

Quincie Dixon, Associate Specialist, Head of Sale, is responsible for running Christie’s dedicated American Art auctions and serving her private and institutional clients with their art collecting, selling and appraisal needs. Quincie has worked in the art and auction field concentrating in American Art for nearly ten years and has been quoted in several financial and art market news outlets. She graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor’s degree in Art History.

Prior to joining Christie’s, Quincie worked for another major auction house as well as a prominent American Art dealer. She joined the Christie’s American Art department in 2018 as a Cataloguer when her first auction was the record-breaking sale of The Barney A. Ebsworth Collection in which the department achieved an historic $91,875,000 for Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey, still the record price for a work of American Art. Since then, Quincie has worked with the department on sourcing, appraising, researching, cataloging and selling property across both the private sale and auction channels and has been involved in the department’s most notable single-owner collection sales including but not limited to The T. Boone Pickens Collection, The Knobloch Collection, The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection, The Ted Shen Collection and importantly The Paul G. Allen Collection, which cemented several of the department’s world auction records including Andrew Wyeth’s Day Dream at $23,290,000. In the private sale context, Quincie has been involved in transactions for a wide range of artists up to the eight-figure price point and has experience with the placement of works in major institutions.

Tylee Abbott

Senior Vice President, Head of American Art | American Art

Tylee Abbott serves as Vice President and Head of the American Art department. In addition to overseeing the department, he assists clients with all aspects of art collecting, from acquisition and sales to appraisals.

With a particular affinity for Western American Art, Tylee has played key roles in Christie’s marquee single owner auctions The Legend of the West: Iconic Works from the T. Boone Pickens Collection and Visions of the West: American Paintings from the William I. Koch Collection. Notable auction results within these collections include Thomas Moran, Frederic Remington, N.C. Wyeth among others. Tylee has also contributed meaningfully to noteworthy results for artists ranging from Alfred Jacob Miller to Victor Higgins and Rebecca Salsbury James.

Prior to joining Christie’s, Tylee held roles across the art world, including with another major New York auction company, as an independent art advisor, and at private galleries. He has also authored over 50 articles on the American and Western American Art markets. Tylee holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and Business from Franklin & Marshall College and a Masters in Art Business from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art – London.