The Miller Collection at Christie's Christie’s is delighted to announce the consignment from the Collection of
J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller to its 2008 season of sales at Christie’s in London and New York.
News-Antique.com - May 22,2008 - THE FAMED COLLECTION OF J. IRWIN AND XENIA S.
MILLER TO BE OFFERED AT CHRISTIE’S
Seventeen Works To Be Sold In London This June Form The Most Significant Offering Of Impressionist And Modern Art Ever To Be Sold By Christie’s In Europe
Collection Includes The Most Important Work From Monet's Waterlilies' Series Ever Sold On The European Market
London / New York – Christie’s is delighted to announce the consignment from the Collection of
J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller to its 2008 season of sales at Christie’s in London and New York.
Leading the collection are seventeen works which will be offered at the Impressionist and Modern Art
Evening Sale in London on June 24, and represent the most important and valuable collection of
Impressionist and Modern art ever offered by Christie's in Europe.
J. Irwin Miller, an industrialist from Columbus, Indiana, and his wife Xenia Simons Miller, were
major philanthropists and patrons of the arts who were instrumental in turning Columbus in
America into a showcase for modern architecture. Their passion for civic renewal was matched with
a belief that art is an essential element of a meaningful life, and the seventeen Impressionist and
Modern works together are expected to realize in excess of £40 million / $80 million.
Their collection is led by Claude Monet’s Le bassin aux nymphéas, an expansive and important late
water-lily painting, one of an extremely rare series of large-scale four paintings signed and dated by
the artist in 1919 (estimate on request). Unlike most of the late work which remained unfinished in
the studio at the artist’s death, these four works were released by the artist during his lifetime. One
of the series is in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, another was cut down and the
third is in a private collection, having been sold at Christie’s New York in November 1992 for the
then very significant price of $12,100,000.
Other major Impressionist and Modern works include an
important Fauve portrait by Henri Matisse (estimate:
£3,000,000-4,000,000); Pierre Bonnard’s luminous Vue du
Cannet of 1927 (estimate: £3,000,000-4,000,000); a Marc
Chagall still life (estimate: £1,500,000-2,500,000); Compotier et guitare, a major Pablo Picasso still life of 1924 (estimate: £3,000,000-4,000,000); an exquisite 1911 cubist oil on canvas,
also by Picasso (estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000); superb
watercolors by Wassily Kandinsky and Camille Pissarro’s
vibrant street scene Cours du Havre, Gare Saint Lazare of 1893
(estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000).
Elsewhere, six other works will be offered in Post-War and
Contemporary Art sales in London, and at New York sales of
American Paintings and Folk Art auctions in 2008. These six
lots include significant pictures by Mark Rothko and a superb
Edwards Hicks example from his much sought-after series The Peaceable Kingdom (estimate: $4,000,000-6,000,000). In its entirety, the Collection is valued in excess of £45 million / $90 million.
Christopher Burge, Honorary Chairman, Christie’s Americas,
says: “In life, Mr. and Mrs. Miller were humble, direct, unpretentious
and somewhat shy. Yet their influence – on the art world, on the business
