Rockefeller art treasures brought in a record-setting $646 million at Christie's auction house in its first of three auctions Tuesday, NBC News reported.
The work was part of the collection from the late David Rockefeller and his wife, Peggy, including their own personal purchases and other work previously handed down over the generations. The auction's first night smashed the previous record held by a collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé that sold in 2009 for $484 million, the network said.
CNN reported that Picasso's "Fillette à la corbeille fleurie" (1905), which had an estimated value of $100 million, sold for $115 million. The Rose Period work had been once owned by Gertrude Stein, and was mentioned in Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" memoir.
NBC News wrote that seven artists set records, including Matisse's "Odalisque couch aux magnolias," which sold for $80.75 million and Monet's Nympheas en fleur (water lilies), which sold for $84,687,500.
"There is no other collection like this anywhere in the world," Christie's chairman Marc Porter said, according to NBC News. "It was bought by the Rockefeller's at the height of their wealth so they could buy the best works that were coming on the market."
Rockefeller, who died last year, donated nearly $2 billion to institutions such as the Rockefeller University, Harvard University, and the Museum of Modern Art, CNN wrote. Funds from the art collection's sale will go to selected charities supported by the couple in their lifetime, the broadcaster noted.
"If he were here, he'd be thrilled, and he would bid on everything. He loved his art," David Rockefeller's grandson Adam Rockefeller Growald, who attended the auction, said, per NBC News.
The network said that jewelry, English and European furniture, European ceramics, Chinese export porcelain, and silver and American decorative arts are also for sale in the continuing auction. American and Latin American art will be featured in Wednesday's auction, including an Edward Hopper landscape estimated at $6 million, NBC News reported.
David Rockefeller was the last surviving grandson of John D. Rockefeller, the industrialist who consolidated the American petroleum industry and founded the Standard Oil Company in the 19th century, becoming one of America's first billionaires, noted Christie's.
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