Art and objects collected by generations of the Stern family: ‘This collection has remained unknown — its appearance on the market now is incredibly exciting’

A family of distinguished bankers and entrepreneurs since the 17th century, the Sterns are also renowned collectors, patrons and philanthropists. For generations, they have collected art at the very highest level, served on the boards of cultural, educational and scientific institutions across Europe, and donated important works to prestigious museums, including the Louvre.

‘The Stern family has now chosen to write a new chapter in its history by offering at auction the works assembled by three generations of passionate collectors before them,’ writes the French journalist Pierre Assouline in the introduction to the sale catalogue.

Assembled over the course of more than a century, the collection offered for sale reflects the connoisseurship and eclectic interests of Edgard Salomon Stern (1854-1937), head of the French branch of the family, his daughter-in-law Alice Stern (1906-2008), and their descendants.

On 11 December 2025, Christie’s in Paris will present Les Stern: une famille de collectionneurs, alongside an online sale until 12 December, offering more than 350 lots ranging from Old Master paintings to furniture, sculpture and works of decorative art, including enamels, silver, bronzes and glass. The sales include works by some of the most celebrated European artists and makers of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, from Boucher, Fragonard, Robert and Tissot to the ébéniste Roger Vandercruse called Lacroix and glass designer Emile Gallé. Many pieces also boast prestigious provenances. There are works once owned by the renowned Parisian couturier Jacques Doucet, Sir Richard Wallace, David David-Weill, the Dukes of Hamilton in Scotland and the Comte d’Artois.

Additionally, paintings by Jan van Goyen and Jacob van Ruisdael will be offered in the Old Masters Evening Sale in London on 2 December.

‘The dazzling and varied works of art demonstrate the enthusiasms and personal tastes of the different collectors within the family,’ says Charles Cator, deputy chairman of Christie’s International. ‘What is even more remarkable about this collection, though, is that it has remained unknown, so its appearance on the market now is incredibly exciting.’

The Stern family

In the 18th century, the Sterns were among the most powerful merchants in Frankfurt. By the mid-19th century, much like the Rothschilds, with whom they established close and lasting ties, they had founded successful banking businesses across Europe, many of which gave rise to major institutions that still exist today.

It is Edgard Salomon Stern in Paris who towers over the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A banker, philanthropist and society figure, Edgard was also a passionate collector of Old Master paintings, favouring Dutch Golden Age pictures above all else. He also collected bronzes, French 18th-century paintings and drawings, and furniture and objets d’art from the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Edgard’s collection reflects the tastes of his age. ‘He was buying from all the great sales of the period as well as from the leading dealers of the time, particularly the Seligmanns,’ observes Cator. Among the significant sales the specialist identifies is the Hamilton Palace sale at Christie’s in 1882, which he describes as ‘one of the greatest collection sales that has ever taken place’. Included in that sale and now offered at auction was a splendid Regency ormolu-mounted Chinese porcelain fountain, dating from around 1720.

Another is the sale of Jacques Doucet’s collection, from which Edgard acquired bronzes, drawings, mounted objects and Savonnerie screens. Of all the lots with Doucet provenance, Cator is particularly taken by a pair of Louis XVI ormolu-mounted green marble cups, circa 1785-90, attributed to the prominent French sculptor and bronzier Pierre-Philippe Thomire. ‘Doucet had an extremely refined eye,’ he says.

Edgard and his wife Marguerite displayed their diverse collection between their hôtel particulier at 20 Avenue Montaigne in Paris and the Château de Villette, a grand neo-Louis-XIII-style property in the Oise commissioned by Edgard in 1903. ‘It was a splendid place, where he entertained lavishly on a grand scale,’ says Cator.

While the Dreyfus name is often associated with a broader family interest in art, it is important to note that Carle Dreyfus played a personal and specific role in shaping Alice’s taste. A respected figure in his own right, Dreyfus transmitted to Alice, his niece, both his discerning eye and his appreciation for refined works. Alice inherited from him the three Tissot pieces presented in the sale, which stand as a direct testament to this artistic connection and to the aesthetic dialogue they shared.

Edgard died in 1937, and three years later, when the German army established itself in France, the family fled to the United States, abandoning their homes, possessions and collections. Their residences were subsequently plundered by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) — the Nazi party’s cultural looting unit — and by agents of Hermann Göring’s personal art service.

Like many others, works from their collection passed briefly through the Jeu de Paume or the Louvre before being sent to the salt mines of Altaussee in Styria, or to Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, where the Nazis stored their looted art. After their recovery by Rose Valland and the Monuments Men, the restitution of the Stern collections proceeded slowly, between May 1945 and February 1952, and was only partial, despite Carle Dreyfus’s tireless efforts. Some of the restituted works are now being offered for sale.

Collection highlights

Dutch Golden Age pictures form a core part of the collection. In addition to Jan van Goyen’s view of Brussels and Jacob van Ruisdael’s 1648 wooded landscape, there is an important still life depicting a basket of fruit and flowers by Maria van Oosterwyck, one of the leading Dutch women artists of the Golden Age. Although Van Oosterwyck was widely recognised during her lifetime for the quality of her still-life painting, she has since been largely overshadowed by her male contemporaries. As part of a movement to recognise overlooked female artists, the Rijksmuseum acquired Van Oosterwyck’s Vanitas Still Life, dating from around 1690, for €1.3 million in 2023. Paintings by Van Oosterwyck are exceptionally rare, with only around 30 of her works having survived to the present day.

The collection is particularly rich in 18th-century French paintings. Offered alongside a pair of paintings depicting architectural fountains by Hubert Robert is a pair of portraits of young girls by François-Hubert Drouais and a pair of cupids by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The sale also includes notable 18th-century French drawings, among them a study by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon of Andromache and Astyanax that has not been exhibited since the Paris Salon of 1798. Noteworthy too is a black and white chalk drawing of a reclining nude by François Boucher from the collection of Jacques Doucet. It was probably completed in the last decade of the artist’s life, when he had been appointed official painter to King Louis XV.

The furniture and works of decorative art include a pair of large famille rose jars and covers from the Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period (1723-35); a late Louis XV ormolu-mounted secrétaire à abattant stamped by Roger Vandercruse, known as Lacroix, circa 1760, which was formerly in the collection of Sir Richard Wallace; and a pair of late Louis XIV three-leaf Savonnerie screens, after the designs of Claude Audran III and Alexandre-François Desportes, previously in the Jacques Doucet collection.

Leading the group of sculptures is a pair of bronze figures, each depicting a famous abduction scene: the first, which represents the abduction of a Sabine, is a fine Florentine cast from the 17th century based on Giambologna’s marble sculpture of the same subject, to be found under the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence; the other, made in the early 18th century, is based on the marble sculpture of Pluto and Proserpina made by François Girardon for Louis XIV’s newly built Versailles. Another standout is a 17th-century bronze group depicting Mercury and Cupid, after a model attributed to Francesco Fanelli.

In the video above, Cator highlights Sur la terrasse du château, a small-scale, impressionistic view of Kew Gardens featuring Tissot’s companion, Kathleen Newton, and her son, Cecil George Newton, as well as her niece, Lilian Hervey, and an unidentified young girl who appears in other paintings by Tissot. In addition to the Tissots, there are works by Boldini, Ernest Ange Duez and Carolus-Duran, who painted the portrait of Marguerite Stern (Edgard’s wife) that her grandsons offered to the Petit Palais.

Alice, an authority on enamels, ceramics and glass, also embraced the bold lines and forms of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, as is evidenced by the distinctive collection of glass and enamels from the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century coming to auction. Her refined sensibility deeply influenced the architect-collector Peter Marino — in his own words, she ‘taught me everything about French 19th-century ceramics and bronzes’ — and guided him into the world of French decorative arts (ceramics, glassware, bronzes, furniture). The standout lot of this group is a glass vase with gold inlays, circa 1900, by Emile Gallé. There are also signed enamel works by Alfred Serre, Théophile Soyer and Eugène Feuillâtre.

The succeeding generations diversified the collection further by adding an important assemblage of French silverware dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, the golden age of French goldsmithing. Many of these pieces were acquired from historic sales in the 1970s and 1980s. A highlight of the silver lots is a splendid tureen, with accompanying liner, cover, stand and serving spoon, by Robert-Joseph Auguste, goldsmith to Louis XV and Louis XVI, whose pair now resides in the Musée Nissim de Camondo in Paris. Also noteworthy is a pair of Louis XIV boxes by Léopold Antoine. Among the 15 pieces formerly in the collection of David David-Weill is a charming silver sponge box by Claude-Nicolas Delanoy. In addition to works by leading Parisian goldsmiths, the sale features a selection of items produced in Strasbourg, Nantes and Lille.

Les Stern: une famille de collectionneurs is on view 6-11 December 2025 at Christie’s in Paris. The online sale is live for bidding until 12 December