‘Collecting at the very highest level’: 18th-century treasures from the Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares Collection

In 1926, the Bolivian industrialist Simón Iturri Patiño acquired the Hôtel Blumenthal at 34 Avenue Foch in Paris for his daughter, Graziella, and her husband, Jorge Ortiz Linares, then secretary to the Bolivian delegation in the French capital. The sumptuous private mansion had been commissioned by Ferdinand Blumenthal, a wealthy New York industrialist, in 1900, and designed in the Neoclassical style by Henri Paul Nénot, the architect of the Sorbonne. In 1928, Graziella renovated the interiors of the property, decorating the suite of reception rooms in the grand French style.

Over the course of four decades, Graziella and her husband would fill these resplendent rooms with a collection of Old Master paintings and decorative arts that would become one of the most prestigious of the 20th century. ‘The Patiño name is synonymous with collecting at the very highest level,’ says Pierre Etienne, international director of Old Master Paintings at Christie’s in Paris. ‘Graziella devoted her attention to the artistic splendours of the 18th century, acquiring the best of the best across categories.’ Major works previously in the collection now reside in the Getty Museum, the Louvre and the Château de Versailles, attesting to its importance.

On 23 September 2026, 60 lots from the Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares Collection, centred on the Régence period and the reign of Louis XV, will be offered at Christie’s in Paris. The sale includes pieces by some of the most celebrated French artists and makers of the era, from Watteau, Fragonard and Ingres to André-Charles Boulle, Charles Cressent and Bernard II van Risenburgh (B.V.R.B.). The collection of silverware includes French royal pieces by Thomas and François-Thomas Germain as well as works by Nicolas Delaunay and Pierre Massé. Many items also boast prestigious provenance: there are works once owned by Madame de Pompadour, the Portuguese royal family and Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.

‘Graziella had a discerning eye and exacting standards, so everything in this collection is of the highest quality,’ says Etienne. ‘Most remarkable of all, however, is the fact that many of the works are fresh to market — some haven’t been seen for 100 years, so their appearance at Christie’s is incredibly exciting.’

Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares was born in 1900 in Oruro, Bolivia. Despite his humble origins, her father, Simón Iturri Patiño, built a hugely successful mining, banking and railway empire. By the early 1920s, the ‘Tin King’, as he became known, was among the wealthiest men in the world.

In 1924, Simón Iturri Patiño and his family moved permanently from South America to Europe, and it was in Paris that Graziella and her husband Jorge Ortiz de Linares chose to make their home. The elegant couple were prominent figures in 1920s Parisian society, and 34 Avenue Foch became one of the epicentres of the city’s cultural and intellectual scene.

‘Graziella was supremely glamorous and had impeccable style,’ says Etienne. ‘Jorge was a respected diplomat with a finely tuned cultural sensibility.’ Graziella’s grace and elegance were preserved for posterity by great artists of the era, including Salvador Dalí and Philip de László. It was the latter who painted the dazzling portrait of Graziella, in a sumptuous red gown by Lanvin, that hung in the grand salon.

With no financial constraints, Graziella and her husband, himself an eminent collector of rare books, assembled a collection that underscored their luxurious way of life. She made acquisitions from all the great house sales of the period, as well as from the leading dealers of the time, particularly the antiquarian Marcel Bissey and the silver specialist Jacques Helft, both of whom helped her refine her eye for quality and exceptional craftsmanship.

The couple displayed their diverse collection between their country house, the Château du Moulinet in the Yvelines, and their hôtel particulier in Paris. Like the Rothschild and Beistegui families before them, the couple commissioned Catherine and Alexandre Serebriakoff to create a series of watercolours that would immortalise the ambience of their Parisian home. ‘There’s a harmonious dialogue between the works on display that reveals Graziella’s deep appreciation and understanding of the 18th century,’ says Paul Gallois, head of European Furniture and Works of Art.

The painting leading the collection is L‘île enchantée (circa 1717), a fête galante by Jean-Antoine Watteau that is considered one of the most important works by the artist remaining in private hands. When it was exhibited in the seminal Watteau retrospective held in Paris in 1984 — one of the rare public presentations of this work — the French art historian and curator Pierre Rosenberg described it as a ‘magnificent spectacle of nature’, comparing it to another great work by Watteau, L’île de Cythère, in the Louvre: ‘L’île enchantée, like L’île de Cythère, is on the Earth yet unreachable, in time yet timeless.’ In 2025, the painting was exhibited in The Worlds of Watteau exhibition at the Château de Chantilly.

‘We know that Watteau studied the masterpieces of Titian and Leonardo da Vinci in the French royal collection,’ says Etienne. ‘The blue-tinged, snow-covered mountain backdrops of the Mona Lisa and the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne seem to have offered direct inspiration for L’île enchantée.’ Before entering the Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares Collection, the painting passed through the hands of several other distinguished collectors, including the British artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, the French banker Léon Michel-Lévy and the celebrated parfumier François Coty.

Another highlight is Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s L’instant désiré or Les Amants heureux. The fluidity of the paint, the transparency of the colours, and the soft light that caresses the bodies, in an embrace that suspends time, are all representative of Fragonard’s signature style.

‘This painting is a fusion of passion and lightness,’ says Etienne. ‘The dynamic brushstrokes and energetic transitions between shadow and light evoke the freedom and spontaneity of an artist who attained an unparalleled level of virtuosity.’

Among the other notable paintings coming to Christie’s are Jean-Baptiste Greuze’s previously unpublished Portrait d’un jeune garçon, which has not been seen in public since 1957; and a rare oil on copper by Antoine Le Nain titled Les Petits danseurs, formerly in the collection of Gabriel Cognacq. Also noteworthy is Julius Caesar by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, which was commissioned by Napoleon III for his private apartments at the Palais des Tuileries. The lot includes two preparatory drawings and an autograph letter from the artist regarding this important commission.

The collection features a significant body of 18th- and 19th-century French drawings, among them a superb watercolour of sleeping soldiers by Eugène Delacroix. Painted in 1832, it comes to market for the first time in more than half a century. There are also two remarkable landscapes in pen and brown ink by Fra Bartolommeo, one of the greatest Florentine masters of the Renaissance.

As for furniture and the decorative arts, highlights include an ormolu-mounted amaranth and ebony inlaid desk and cartonnier (filing cabinet) attributed to André-Charles Boulle, from around 1715. The desk features cabriole legs and a projecting central drawer embellished with a grimacing face. It bears a striking resemblance to a design from around 1710 in the series of drawings attributed to Boulle preserved at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. ‘This desk is one of the very few known examples retaining its original filing cabinet,’ says Gallois, who explains that Boulle, as Premier Ebéniste et Sculpteur du Roi, was allowed to bypass the constraints of the Parisian trade guilds and produce all aspects of his gold-mounted furniture. ‘This royal patronage afforded him great freedom to experiment with innovative designs.’

Oriental lacquerware was popular in the 18th century and features prominently in the collection. Highlights from the grand salon include a pair of Louis XV ormolu-mounted corner cabinets in black lacquer by Bernard II van Risenburgh (B.V.R.B.), widely regarded as the greatest ébéniste of the reign of Louis XV. It is now established that they probably came from the Château de Crécy and were commissioned by Madame de Pompadour in 1753, which confirms Graziella’s eye for excellence. They later entered the collection of Paul Dutasta, a French diplomat and secretary of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, which led to the Treaty of Versailles. ‘This pair of cabinets, featuring floral end-cut marquetry, is typical of B.V.R.B.’s distinctive style at the height of his career,’ says Gallois. ‘Rather unusually, though, they have no doors, which allows you to appreciate fully the contrast between the black lacquer and the marquetry within.’

Gallois also highlights two commodes by Mathieu Criaerd: one dating from 1740 with Japanese lacquer; the other from 1745-1749 with Chinese lacquer, formerly in the collection of François Coty. The former has a restrained floral design on the exterior, while the latter features an exuberant figurative scene and rich bronze mounts. ‘They are by the same maker but have a completely different feel about them, which says a lot about the evolution of style and taste during the 18th century,’ says Gallois.

Also noteworthy is a Louis XIII Savonnerie carpet, which was probably made in the Chaillot workshop in France circa 1660-64. ‘This carpet is not only extremely rare but it is also extremely beautiful and magnificently preserved,’ says Louise Broadhurst, international head of Rugs and Carpets at Christie’s in London, in the video above. ‘Here we see the majesty of French artistry and craftsmanship coming together in one phenomenal design.’ Its monumental dimensions (at nearly six metres long) and lavish decoration foreshadow Louis XIV’s major commissions for the Louvre, which were showcased in The Rediscovered Treasure of the Sun King at the Grand Palais in Paris earlier this year.

Graziella’s silver collection — assembled for the most part in New York in the 1940s with the expertise of the renowned dealer Jacques Helft — ranks with some of the greatest in history, alongside those of families such as the Rothschilds, the David-Weills and the López-Willshaws.

The centrepiece is a set of four three-light candelabra by Thomas Germain from the Portuguese royal service, one of the most important surviving sets of 18th-century French silver in the world, and the largest commission entrusted by a foreign court to the Germain workshop. The set, which features Rococo scrolls and sculptural models of satyrs and fauns, dates from around 1735 and is thought to have been conceived by Germain for his own collection. In 1757, his son, François-Thomas Germain, added his hallmark to the branches and sleeves and sold them to the king of Portugal as part of the royal service commission. When the royal family fled the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal to Rio de Janeiro in 1807, they took the Germain service with them. Following the Liberal Revolution of Porto in 1820, King João VI returned to Portugal, bringing most of the Germain service back to Lisbon. This set of candelabra, however, remained in Brazil, passing to Emperor Pedro I, and thence by descent until they were dispersed, together with the remainder of the service, in 1889.

Another notable silver lot is a rare silver-gilt ewer and basin crafted in 1704 by Louis XIV’s goldsmith, Nicolas Delaunay. Although this model of ewer was widely reproduced in bronze until the 19th century, only two known examples by Delaunay in silver-gilt survive. The older of the two, made in 1697, which has lost its basin, is now in Poitiers Cathedral. The example offered at Christie’s is the only one that remains complete. ‘The delicacy of the chasing, the layered design and the dynamism of the panther-shaped handle are emblematic of Delaunay’s skill and artistic mastery,’ says Isabelle Cartier-Stone, head of Gold Boxes at Christie’s in Paris.

Other highlights include a set of four Louis XIV candlesticks by Pierre Massé; a pair of Régence ormolu-mounted Chinese porcelain vases from circa 1720, which stood on a console table at the top of the central staircase; and a pair of Louis XV ormolu-mounted Japanese and Villeroy porcelain candelabra dating from the mid-18th century. There is also an important pair of Louis XV gilt-bronze wall lights by Jacques Caffiéri — made for the Palace of Colorno, near Parma, at the behest of Louise-Elisabeth de France, daughter of Louis XV — which adorned the walls of one of the salons.

The Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares Collection is on view 17-23 September 2026 at Christie’s in Paris