The auction of Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon’s estate, which offered collectibles from a $39.9 million Mark Rothko painting to a rabbit-shaped doorstop for more than $5,000, fetched $218.1 million at Sotheby’s in New York.
The 1,521 objects including fine art, furnishings and jewelry owned by Mellon, who died in March at the age of 103, were offered in three sales over five days that ended yesterday. Ninety-eight percent of the lots sold.
Collectors sought a piece of the history of the American socialite, who was married to the late banking heir Paul Mellon. Sotheby’s said more than 5,000 visitors came to see the collection in one week at its New York headquarters.
“It was a very specific, particular taste,” said Richard Mishaan, a New York-based interior designer. “People reacted so strongly to it because it was an endorsement of a lifestyle, a country club aesthetic.”
The Nov. 10 “Masterworks” sale, which featured 43 artworks, totaled $158.7 million and was led by two Rothko paintings. One, a deep blue and purple series of color blocks from 1970, sold for $39.9 million. The second, a yellow and orange painting from 1955, went for $36.6 million.
The interiors sale, which ran from Nov. 21 through yesterday, included objects from Mellon’s homes in the U.S., Europe and Caribbean and fetched $14.3 million, more than double the auction house’s estimates.
Blue Diamond
A porcelain dinner service from the late 18th century sold for $293,000, above its high estimate of $150,000. A table by the sculptor Diego Giacometti, the brother of modernist sculptor Alberto Giacometti, sold for $245,000, nearly triple its high estimate of $70,000.
At the Nov. 20 and 21 auctions devoted to Mellon’s jewelry, a highlight was a pear-shaped, fancy vivid blue diamond weighing 9.75 carats that sold for $32.6 million, an auction record for a blue diamond. The previous auction record was $24.3 million, set at Christie’s in London in December 2008.
A Cartier necklace with 29 diamonds weighing a collective 111 carats sold for $2.8 million. The necklace, which dates from 1948, has a 4.2 carat, fancy yellow diamond clasp.
Proceeds will benefit the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation, a charity Mellon established in honor of her father.
The Mellon name helped push prices up for less prestigious lots. A painted cast-iron doorstop in the shape of a rabbit, with a high estimate of $250, sold for $5,313.
“I couldn’t believe the prices people were paying for these things,” Mishaan said. “You could easily find the same thing — not owned by Bunny Mellon — at a much better price.”
