Wide range of very worth collectors items belonged to Huguette Clark, Reclusive Copper Heiress will be offered by Christie’s Auction house at its New York Spring 2014 sale. The approximately 400 pieces from Huguette Clark’s collection include a number of items never before on view to the general public, Christie’s said on Friday. The Clark Family Collection, including fine art, musical instruments, Gilded Age furnishings, decorative arts, and rare books collected by two generations of the Clark family will be offered for sale at Christie’s this spring, opening a new chapter in the story of one of the cornerstone dynasties of the Industrial Age in America.
The Clark family put together “one of the finest estate collections we have ever had the privilege of offering at Christie’s,” Christie’s Americas President Doug Woodham said in a statement.
The total collection is expected to fetch more than $50 million at two New York sales in May and June, after a public tour brings some highlights to Christie’s London in late January, then to locales in Asia and then to Christie’s home base in Rockefeller Center in April. The full collection also will be on public view at Rockefeller Center just before the sales. Details are to be announced later.
As one of the nation’s wealthiest men at the turn of the 20th century, William Andrews (W.A.) Clark’s (1839-1925) name is synonymous with American aspiration, having built a successful personal empire in multiple industries, most notably copper mining. Huguette Clark was his last surviving child who died in 2011 at the age of 104. Clark, who became a subject of public fascination in the later years of her life, having lived in a hospital room last 20 years. With no close relatives, she left a roughly $300 million estate and a swirl of questions about the input she’d gotten from a close circle of caregivers and advisers and about the extensive gifts and bequests she’d given them in return. She’d signed two wills within six weeks at age 98, the first bequeathing her riches mostly to about 20 distant relatives and the second cutting them out. Some of Clark’s real estate and possessions have already been sold.
The auction proceeds will go to the estate to be distributed. The September settlement mainly benefited arts institutions and the distant relations.
