Sotheby's to Auction Jean and Terry de Gunzburg Collection in New York
A major single-owner sequence led by Claude Lalanne works and a 1969 Mark Rothko will open with a design sale estimated at $30 million to $44 million.
Sotheby's has announced a multi-part sale of works from the collection of Jean and Terry de Gunzburg, beginning April 22 in New York with a dedicated design auction estimated at $30 million to $44 million. The house describes it as the most valuable single-owner design sale in its history.
ARTnews reports that the broader offering is anchored by blue-chip material, including Claude Lalanne works and a 1969 Mark Rothko estimated around $15 million. Together, the lots frame the de Gunzburg collection as a tightly integrated conversation between postwar art and collectible design.
The sale packages postwar painting and high design as one lifestyle thesis, and the market will bid on the thesis as much as the objects.
The strategy reflects current auction logic: collectors now bid across categories, and houses increasingly stage cross-department narratives instead of medium-specific silos. In this context, the de Gunzburg sale is both a financial event and a branding exercise in taste.
Results will be watched as an early indicator for the upper end of the spring market in New York, especially for works that sit between design history and contemporary art collecting habits.