Mickey Cartin Puts More Than 80 Works Up for Sale at Christie's
Mickey Cartin, a Connecticut collector, is selling more than 80 works through Christie's, the London-based auction house. ARTnews reported that the objects could fetch as much as US$8 million.
The sale is not a single evening. It is spread over more than 10 auctions in London, Paris and New York, running from November this year until July 2027. Each auction sells a different group of lots, the numbered items put up for bidding.
The money figures are estimates. An estimate is the price range an auction house expects a work to reach, and it is not a guaranteed result. Some lots carry much lower ranges. A Roman Opalka painting, OPAŁKA 1965/1 – Détail 3820343-3843981, is estimated at US$400,000 to US$600,000. Walton Ford's 1996 watercolour Avatars – The Birds of India is estimated at US$200,000 to US$300,000. A 1950 self-portrait by Giorgio de Chirico is estimated at US$180,000 to US$250,000. A 1517 book, Theuerdank, printed for Emperor Maximilian I, is estimated at £100,000 to £150,000.
One lot has a history that goes beyond its price. A 15th-century Netherlandish panel, Resurrection of Christ by the Master of the Virgo Inter Virgines, was restituted to the heirs of Jacques Goudstikker, a Dutch art dealer. Restitution means returning an object to its rightful owners, often after a claim based on provenance, the documented chain of who owned a work and when. The panel was taken from Goudstikker during the Nazi looting of the Second World War. It had previously hung in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Cartin began collecting in 1988. He worked at Capitol Light and Supply Company in Connecticut from 1971. His grandfather had started the firm in 1918. Cartin became its president and grew it from a staff of about a dozen into a national business with hundreds of employees, according to ARTnews. He ranked on the magazine's Top 200 Collectors list every year from 2007 to 2013.
His collection has been shown before. In 2021, David Zwirner, a New York gallery, staged an exhibition called Seen in the Mirror: Things from the Cartin Collection. A 2005 New York Times article reported that 50 to 100 works from the collection were on loan to galleries and museums around the world at any one time.
Cultured magazine reported in mid-October that Cartin's apartment in Greenwich Village, New York, is on the market for US$10 million. The apartment sale is separate from the auctions.
Christie's catalogue also lists works by Peder Balke and Vilhelm Hammershøi under the heading "Selections from the Collection of Mickey Cartin." For buyers, the auctions are the place to bid. For the collection itself, every lot that sells will leave Cartin's walls and go to a new owner, one hammer price at a time. The hammer price is the bid the auctioneer closes on, before buyer's premium, the fee added on top.
