A Park Avenue Collection

On 17 April 2024, Christie’s New York is proud to offer A Park Avenue Collection, a sale of approximately 270 lots representing the fruits of over 40 years of passionate collecting, comprising a rich array of 18th century French furniture, Old Master paintings and drawings and Chinese works of art. The collector was forced to flee Hungary with his family in the 1940s and eventually settled in New York. To cross the threshold of his apartment on Park Avenue was to enter a magical treasure trove, evoking a bygone age of elegance, perhaps an attempt to recreate the lost world of his childhood. Richly mounted furniture was in every corner, candelabra glistened on every surface and a remarkable profusion of paintings ranging from the Dutch Golden Age to avant-garde post-Impressionists were hung salon style throughout the apartment. His strongest passion though was for 18th century France and each room in the apartment was imbued with that spirit and arranged to evoke the formal groupings of the dix-huitième siècle.

He was fascinated by the history of objects and bought from many of the greatest collections to come on the market in recent years, with a rollcall of distinguished provenances in the sale including Jayne Wrightsman, Florence Gould, Champalimaud, Elizabeth Parke Firestone, Sir Richard Wallace, the Vienna, Paris and London branches of the Rothschild family, J. Paul Getty and perhaps the earliest American collector of French furniture, Gouverneur Morris. The entire proceeds of the sale of A Park Avenue Collection will benefit various charities.