Christie’s The Ann and Gordon Getty Collection series totaled over $200 million for charity during the course of its 15 sales, held from October 2022 to October 2023. The series included over 2,300 lots from the Getty’s California properties, spaces that reflected, each in their own unique way, the singular eye and range of inspiration of their decorator, Ann Getty.

Mary Cassatt’s Young Lady in a Loge Gazing to Right provided an auspicious start at the Broadway sale, shattering a 15-year-old record when it achieved $7,489,000 in an acquisition by Japan’s Pola Museum of Art. A royal early George III mahogany China cabinet realises $2,700,000 at the same sale. Decorative arts goes over well throughout the series, with one of the leading lots from the final Wheatland sale, a massive pair of Chinese export reverse-painted mirrors, outperforming estimates and fetching $403,200.

At the Temple of Wings auction, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's A Coign of Vantage realised $7,068,000. The painting’s sweet, seaside indolence, depicting three women looking out over the Bay of Naples, echoes the view of the Bay the Gettys once enjoyed.

The series as a whole outdoes itself, with lots from Jules Bastien-Lepage, Jean-Antoine Watteau, and Jacques-Émile Blanche establishing and breaking multiple world auction records. Several works were also acquired by private sale, now on view at major institutions including The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Leighton House, London.