Irene Roosevelt Aitken: The Drawing Room and French Paintings

Elizabeth Seigel is a Vice President, Specialist, Head of Private and Iconic Collections in New York. She joined Christie’s King Street in 2011, and in 2012 moved to New York as a specialist across Decorative Arts, focusing on English and European furniture, tapestries, porcelain and 19th century decorative arts. Since joining the Private and Iconic Collections team in 2015 she has helped to coordinate the landmark collections of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Betsy Bloomingdale, Joan Rivers, Peggy and David Rockefeller, Jayne Wrightsman and Andre Leon Talley. Additionally, she has headed successful single owner sports memorabilia sales, such as Selections from the Geddy Lee Collection and Important Baseball Memorabilia. Liz recently helped guide The Ann and Gordon Getty Collection, a suite multiple cross-category sales, which garnered over $200 million for philanthropy and Rothschild Masterpieces, which tripled its low estimate raising over $60 million.

Liz graduated from Cornell University magna cum laude, and received her Master of Letters with distinction from Christie’s Education, London.

Will Strafford, Senior International Specialist, European Furniture and Decorative Arts, has been based in New York since 2003 and was head of the European Furniture department from 2003-2012. Prior to that he ran the European Furniture sales in Christie’s King Street from 1999-2002 and worked as a European Furniture specialist in Christie’s New York from 1993-1999. The landmark sales he has worked on include Works of Art from the Wernher Collection (2000), the Collection of the Late Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild (2000, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (2000), the Doris Duke Collection (2004), the Partridge and Segoura sales (2006) , the Van Cliburn Collection (2012), the Collection of Djahanguir Riahi (2012), the Peggy and David Rockefeller Collection (2018), and the Desmarais Collection (2019). Mr. Strafford has a degree in English and History of Art, and more than thirty years of experience in the auction business.

Jennifer Wright was appointed head of Old Master Paintings, New York in June 2024. She has been at Christie’s for 18 years, ten as specialist and head of the Old Master Drawings department, and from 2016-2024 as a Client Relationship Director in the Client Advisory group of the Chairman’s Office. While in Old Master Drawings Jennifer participated in the 2009 sale of Raphael’s Head of a Muse, which sold for £29,000,000, at the time the world record price for a drawing at auction; and in 2013 oversaw the highest-earning various owners Old Master Drawings sale in Christie’s history. While in Client Advisory she managed and developed a portfolio of top-US clients across all collecting categories, and was the driver of several single-owner-sales that featured Old Masters including Property from the Estate of Eugene V. Thaw (2018); Rooms as Portraits: Michael S. Smith (2018, New York and London); Always in Style: Property from the Collection of Herbert Kasper (2021); and Modern Medici: Masterpieces from a New York Collection (2023 and 2024). Jennifer is an auctioneer, and is also co-head of Christie’s charity auctioneering program.

Jennifer earned her undergraduate degree in Art History at Georgetown University, a Master’s degree in Fine and Decorative Art from Sotheby’s Institute, and a Master of Arts degree from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. She is an emeritus member of the Georgetown College Board of Advisors, as well as the founder and inaugural chairwoman of the Director’s Council for the Georgetown University Art Galleries.

Csongor Kis has nearly twenty years of experience in the field of decorative arts, with a specialty in continental European furniture from the early Baroque to the mid-nineteenth century. He joined Christie’s European Furniture Department in New York in 2019, after working as a private adviser. Previously, he served for over a decade as assistant vice president and specialist in the European furniture and carpet departments at Sotheby’s in New York. Throughout his career, he played an instrumental role not only in various-owner sales but also in highly successful single-owner auctions, including those of Brooke Astor, Bunny Mellon, Lily and Edmond J. Safra, Patricia Kluge, Ann and Gordon Getty, Jayne Wrightsman, and Sydell Miller, among others. A native of Budapest, Hungary, Mr. Kis received his B.A. in art history from Bard College and his M.A. from the Bard Graduate Center in the History of Decorative Arts. In addition to his native Hungarian, Mr. Kis speaks Italian and German.