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Freeman’s New CEO Muys Snijders Is Betting on Regional Roots and a Wider Reach

The newly appointed chief executive of America's oldest auction house has a plan to scale its estate business without sacrificing the connoisseurship and personal touch that have traditionally set it apart from larger rivals.

The oldest auction house in the U.S., Freeman's has built a depth of expertise and a regional presence few competitors can match. Yet the art market has changed dramatically since Tristram B. Freeman, a British print seller, founded the house in Philadelphia in 1805, and auction houses have had to evolve, adapting to shifts in buyer and seller behavior, technological advances and an increasingly crowded art market ecosystem.

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Leading Freeman’s into its next phase of innovation and global expansion is Muys Snijders, appointed CEO in June. A recognized industry leader with 25 years of experience, Snijders most recently served as senior vice president and head of Art Services at AIG Private Client Group, now Private Client Select. Previously, she led global client strategy and oversaw auction and private sales at Christie’s and worked at Bonhams as a Post-War & Contemporary specialist. Named one of the Top 50 Women Leaders of New York and one of The 10 Most Influential Women Changing the Face of Business, Snijders was also one of Observer’s 2025 Art Power Index honorees.

Freeman’s opened its New York saleroom in 2024, when Hindman and Freeman’s merged under a single organization. Observer recently visited the auction house’s bustling East 67th Street townhouse, where we saw Chinese ceramics, ink paintings and tomb sculptures slated to go on the block during Asia Week New York. Nearly 300 lots were offered on September 18, in Freeman’s main Asian Art sale, bringing the series to a total of $3.7 million.

The highlight was a monumental Chinese blue-and-white “Nine Dragons” vase from the Qing Dynasty, whose style suggests a 19th-century date and an original destination in the household of a prince or another high-ranking member of the Qing court. Rediscovered recently outside Philadelphia, it had last appeared on the market in 1943 through Yamanaka & Company, the influential Asian art dealership that helped bring major Chinese works and collections to Europe and the U.S. The vase drew substantial pre-sale interest, with at least 10 bidders registering in advance for the lot, which required a deposit. It sold for $1,036,800.

Earlier that day, the house had staged a single-owner sale of Chinese snuff bottles from the estate of Dr. Thomas Klein, which drew bidders from around the world and pushed many of these exquisite, often curious objects well past their estimates. “It took them four hours to sell 117 snuff bottles, just because there was so much competition,” Ben Farina, senior vice president of Asian arts, told Observer as he walked us through the rooms with Snijders. The sale achieved $687,168, nearly quadrupling its presale estimate, with every lot sold. At its close, Farina announced that 88 more lots from the collection would be offered in an online auction ending October 8.

Freeman’s Asian art department runs on connoisseurship and long-term relationships, and its strongest objects often emerge unexpectedly from American private collections, sometimes after decades off the market. Here lies an advantage that extends across all of the house’s departments: longstanding relationships, regional sourcing and decades of market presence,........

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