Displaying items by tag: heiress

The descendants of heiress and art collector Peggy Guggenheim lost their case in a French court Wednesday over her extensive collection of works housed in an 18th century palace on Venice's Grand Canal.

The French branch of the family launched legal action against the New York-based Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, which manages the collection.

The relatives are angry at the way the collection of paintings by artists including Picasso, Miro and Matisse are displayed and have called for it to be restored to its original configuration.

The descendants of heiress, art collector, and patron Peggy Guggenheim are launching yet another appeal in a French court tomorrow against the Guggenheim Foundation over the management of her vast art collection, housed in an 18th century palazzo on Venice's Grand Canal, AFP reports.

After years of collecting art, Guggenheim settled in Venice, where she purchased Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in 1949.

The reclusive heiress Huguette Clark sold her first painting Wednesday, three years after her death at 104. She did okay, too, with two paintings of Fifth Avenue (as seen from a window of her Manhattan mansion) each going for $19,000 at a Christie’s auction in New York.

A self-portrait of the artist holding a palette went for $13,000, and Clark’s work titled “Cereus, night blooming cactus” fetched $6,000, our colleague Melinda Henneberger reports.

At least four descendants of Huguette’s father, billionaire copper baron and Montana senator William A. Clark, were among those bidding.

This spring, Christie’s will sell approximately 400 items from the collection of Huguette Clark, a reclusive copper heiress. The auction house has revealed that the trove includes Claude Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’, which has not been exhibited publicly since 1926 and is expected to fetch between $25 million and $35 million, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s ‘Young Women Playing Badminton,’ which is expected to bring between $10 million and $15 million.

Clark’s collection also includes musical instruments, Gilded Age furniture and rare books. The trove will be divided among two sales -- one on May 6 that will include the Monet and Renoir paintings, and another on June 18. The entire collection is expected to fetch more than $50 million. Before the sales, highlights from Clark’s holdings will go on view at Christie’s London and then at various locations throughout Asia.

Clark was the daughter of U.S. senator and copper tycoon, William A. Clark. Beginning in 1930, she led a largely reclusive life and when she passed away in 2011, she left behind an estate worth nearly $300 million. The proceeds from the upcoming sales will go to the estate, which will most likely be distributed between art institutions and distant relatives.