Huguette Clark
Paintings by Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir are among 400 items that will be sold from reclusive copper heiress’ Huguette Clark’s private trove this spring.
The late Ms. Clark, the youngest daughter of U.S. senator and industrialist William A. Clark, owned a palatial estate on Dans Highway in New Canaan. She bought it in 1951 but never spent a night in it. Clark, who died in May 2011, at 104, also owned mansions in California and New York.
The Clark collection sale at Christie’s comes after a feud over her estate was settled in the fall.
Some of pieces were acquired by her father, a Butte copper king and senator who founded Las Vegas.
Monet’s “Water Lilies” is estimated to bring $25 million to $35 million.
Another masterpiece in the sale is Renoir’s “Young Women Playing Badminton.”
It has a presale estimate of $10 million to $15 million. Both will be offered May 6.
Other items from the collection go on sale June 18. They include a Stradivari violin, Gilded Age furniture and rare books.
Ms. Clark was the subject of a 2013 book written by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman.
“Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune,” tells “a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world,” according to Amazon.com.
Dedman collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her.
Read more about the book here.
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Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
“Young Ladies Playing Badminton” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.