Inside the Most Valuable Single-Owner Design Sale in Sotheby’s History

Is the demand for Art Deco and later 20th-century design still running high? We’ll know definitively on April 22, when the contents of Jean and Terry de Gunzburg’s Upper East Side apartment—designed by acclaimed decorator Jacques Grange, renowned for transforming the homes of Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Bergé, François Pinault, Aerin Lauder, Francis Ford Coppola’s Palazzo Margherita and even the Mark Hotel on Madison Avenue— goes on the block at Sotheby's. The most valuable single-owner design sale in the auction house’s history, Design Masters will feature 123 works by such revered talents as Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, Alberto Giacometti, Jean-Michel Frank, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Jean Royère.

Sotheby’s preview of the collection (on through April 21 at the Breuer building on Madison Avenue) tells of the unrivaled stature of the couple’s holdings, which together have a high estimate of $42.5 million. The de Gunzburgs are heads and shoulders above legions of sophisticated collectors, each having carved out a career marked by creative instincts wed to intellectual rigor. Terry worked closely with Yves Saint Laurent and his Beauté division, serving as creative director and developing the innovative Touche Éclat concealer. In 1998, she founded her own brand, By Terry. Her husband, an internationally renowned molecular and cell biologist, held senior positions at the Institut Curie and later achieved distinction in biotech. Together, they spent four decades assembling one of the most dynamic private collections of 20th-century avant-garde works.

Top of the heap in rarities is a Claude Lalanne ensemble of 15 gilt-bronze mirrors, commissioned by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé for their Paris apartment’s Salon de Musique between 1974 and 1985, carrying a $10-15 million estimate. The first two mirrors were Lalanne’s earliest endeavors: tendrils of foliage in gilt bronze with galvanized copper leaves to frame grand mirrors; she went on to create 13 more. For Terry, acquiring the ensemble was no mere transaction but an act inspired by fond memories of visiting the fashion designer’s Left Bank home on the Rue de Babylone. She has often said that each acquisition was the ultimate “coup de foudre.” Terry purchased the suite at Christie’s historic 2009 sale of Saint Laurent and Bergé’s collection, held in the Grand Palais, for €1.8 million, but she “never” found an appropriate room for the mirrors in any of their homes, whether in Paris, the South of France or Tel Aviv. Sotheby’s is betting the suite will fetch considerably more.

The strength of the design market may be pegged to the momentum of Les Lalanne. Only last year, Sotheby’s hammered François-Xavier Lalanne’s Hippopotame Bar, a pièce unique, for a stunning $31.4 million against a $7-10 million estimate—setting a new record for the artist and the highest price ever achieved for a work of design at auction. Other top lots in the de Gunzburg sale include Claude Lalanne’s witty and unnerving large Pomme d’Hiver (estimate: $3-5 million) and Très Grand Choupatte (estimate: $2-3 million).

Another must-see is Art Deco designer André Groult’s 1926 cabinet sheathed in shagreen—stingray skin, dyed celadon green—and trimmed with ebony, bronze and amazonite, with a tidy $800,000 high estimate. Nearby in the preview is a pair of 1946 Alexandre Noll mahogany cabinets standing more than six and a half feet tall with 11 drawers apiece, which attest to the designer’s penchant for spare, sculptural forms. Sotheby’s expects the Noll to achieve between $700,000 and $1 million. Further evidence of the de Gunzburgs’ penchant for design that approaches sculpture: Jean Royère’s fabled “Ours Polaire” sofa and a pair of armchairs. The polar bear-ish sofa, upholstered in flame-like orange mohair, is expected to reach $600,000-800,000. AD 100 architects—Lee Mindel among them—are known to crave Royère’s idiosyncratic seating.

As to why the de Gunzburgs are selling, they want their children to make their own choices in décor. On top of that, Art Deco furnishings are notoriously fragile, and the de Gunzburgs also happen to have 11 grandchildren. But does the name de Gunzburg carry sufficient cachet to move their masterpieces in these deeply unsettling times? One member of the haute cognoscenti dubbed Terry “a fashionable influencer,” before telling Observer, “I am not sure that she is public enough to influence the world at large.”

And who exactly will the deep-pocketed buyers be in this war-torn era? “I am not certain that these turbulent times will inflect or impact this type of market one way or another,” Paris-born, Manhattan-based architect Robert Couturier, whose projects span multiple continents, told Observer. “Remember that the Saint Laurent sale was the day the stock market hit its lowest point in 20 years, and more than 60 Christie’s staffers were taking bids on the phone. Plus, the de Gunzburg works are rare enough that people will buy anyway. Her status as a collector gives an extra value to her belongings, and it’s not a dealer’s market—it’s a global market with clients as far flung as Hong Kong.” Plus, there are still many, many wealthy Americans. After further reflection, he added, “The international situation is a problem, but it’s not forever.”

Artworks from Jean and Terry de Gunzburg’s collection, with superlative pieces by Mark Rothko, Robert Ryman, Agnes Martin, Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee, among others, will be included in The New York Sales in May.

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