This Park Avenue collection evokes the opulence and elegance of a lost world

In an apartment in one of New York City’s most coveted addresses, a collector exquisitely curated 18th-century French furniture, Old Master paintings and drawings, and Chinese works that transported visitors to a bygone era of opulence and refinement. The genesis of this remarkable interior traces back to the 1940s when the collector’s family was forced to flee Hungary and came to settle in New York. His abode on Park Avenue became a sanctuary where over 40 years he acquired a trove of exceptional art and furnishings that boast distinguished provenance from some of the most esteemed collections in history.

Nearly 270 works from the residence will come to auction in A Park Avenue Collection on 17 April at Christie’s in New York. ‘He carried the legacy of collecting onwards,’ Csongor Kis, Christie’s specialist in English and European Furniture, says of the Park Avenue collector, who sought out treasures from storied estates and collections. The sale encompasses objects once owned by Jayne Wrightsman, Florence Gould, Sir Richard Wallace, Anna Thomson Dodge, the Rothschild family and J. Paul Getty.

The collector’s discerning eye was evident throughout the apartment, where Old Master paintings hung alongside Rococo and post-Impressionist canvases in captivating salon-style arrays. Luminous works by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Elizabeth-Louis Vigée Le Brun, and Peter Paul Rubens are some of the crown jewels of the collection.

The French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze’s Une jeune fille qui pleure la mort de son oiseau (A girl weeping over her dead bird) depicts a young woman grieving for a beloved pet. The picture, which likely alludes to a verse from Catullus, is imbued with ‘symbolism of innocence lost’ according to Joshua Glazer, a specialist in Christie’s Old Master Paintings department.

One of the most prominent artists of the 18th century, Greuze is particularly celebrated for his genre scenes, in which he successfully blended traditional French painting with a Dutch Realist style. ‘Greuze essentially created a new type of painting, conceiving his scenes of everyday life with a sense of urgency and drama usually exclusively reserved for the grand history paintings of the Académy Royale,’ Glazer adds.

Another highlight of the sale is an 18th-century French painting by Elizabeth-Louis Vigée Le Brun, Portrait of the artist’s daughter, Jeanne-Julie-Louis Le Brun (1780-1819), playing a guitar. Vigée Le Brun’s knack for captivating portraits, such as her revered pictures of Marie Antoinette, extends effortlessly to this touching depiction of her own daughter, Julie, painted when the two were living in exile in Saint Petersburg. ‘It is a painting full of joy, reflecting that artist’s maternal love and adoration for her only child,’ says Glazer. ‘Her classical composition draws inspiration from and rivals the great Renaissance and Baroque paintings that she admired.’

Renowned for his grand altarpieces during the Dutch Golden Age, Peter Paul Rubens produced enchanting preparatory paintings, such as The Virgin and Child of the Rosary from the collection. ‘Rubens was one of the most sought-after artists of the period,’ notes Glazer. Fluidly rendered oil sketches on panel like this one — made in preparation for a large-scale painting for the Dominican Church of the Hermitage in Lier, near Antwerp — have long been celebrated as independent works of art in their own right.

‘These magical sketches were usually kept in his workshop to be used as models for future compositions, but they are remarkable demonstrations of Rubens’ mastery of the brush,’ he adds. The Virgin and Child of the Rosary, in particular, captures the spontaneity and virtuosity of the artist’s hand, with its confident brushwork of the drapery and warm bright colours.

The sale also marks the re-emergence of a work by Michelangelo: Diagram of a rectangular block of marble. The work represents a newly discovered addition to a group of diagrams of marble blocks by the artist, presenting collectors with a rare chance to acquire a piece by Il Divino himself. ‘These were either intended for the quarries that provided him with the blocks to make his sculptures, or for the shippers of these blocks,’ says Giada Damen, Christie’s Old Master Drawings specialist.

The diagram was affixed to the back of A group of men capturing a nude man, a compelling drawing created by one of Michelangelo’s associates. While the gem had gone previously unnoticed, its attribution was confirmed by the handwriting of the word ’simile,’ and by the letter to which is is attached, written by Michelangelo’s last direct descendant, Cosimo Buonarroti. ‘This is an exciting opportunity for a wide range of collectors to possess one of the few works by Michelangelo remaining in private hands,’ says Damen.

Complementing this rich art collection is an equally captivating selection of carefully curated furniture and works of art. In particular, the collector’s passion for 18th-century French decorative arts was palpable throughout the apartment’s interiors, which evoke the formal groupings of the dix-huitième siècle.

A gem within the apartment’s decorative works is a porcelain-mounted French clock. It fuses French production and German craftsmanship, accentuated by opulent gilt bronze. This splendid object epitomises the fashion and whimsy of the Rococo era. ‘What’s great about porcelain from the 18th-century is that it retains its colour,’ says Kis. The clock looks just as it did in the time of Louis le Bien-Aimé.

In the 18th century Europe saw an influx of Chinese art and objects, and imported works by Chinese artists were often repurposed by Parisian designers in pieces of furniture, like the pair of Louis XV encoignures in the collection. These superb corner cabinets are sumptuously veneered in colourful Chinese lacquer and beautifully chased rocaille mounts. To add to its renowned provenance, these encoignures once belonged to Elizabeth Parke Firestone, wife of tire magnate Harvey S. Firestone Jr.

The rise of chinoiserie was popularised by the marchand-merciers, who monopolised the trade of Asian imports. The pair of Louis XV encoignures were crafted by Jacques Dubois, one of the most prolific cabinet-makers in the period, who frequently collaborated with the marchand-merciers.

A pair of Louis XVI side cabinets marks a change in taste that started with the rigorous Neoclassical style of the 1750s and 1760s. 'The low cabinets were a reflection of changing interiors, as they worked well in picture and sculpture galleries which were very fashionable among elite collectors in Paris during this time,' says Kis. Connoisseurs in this period rediscovered the work of André-Charles Boulle, cabinet maker to the Sun King in Versailles, who was famous for his intricate marquetry and his use of richly sculptural gilt-bronze mounts on an ebony ground. These cabinets, crafted later in the 18th century, cleverly reuse elements of marquetry from the Louis XIV period.

With a distinct trove of objects ranging from 18th-century French furniture to Old Master paintings to Chinese works of art, this Park Avenue collection represents decades of thoughtful collecting. ‘There’s something for everyone in this sale,’ Kis says. ‘You can walk away with a piece from a consciously assembled collection by someone with a very good eye.’