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The $96 Million de Gunzburg Collection Just Set a New Bar for Design at Auction

Claude Lalanne’s $33.5 million mirror ensemble led the white-glove Sotheby's sale, which set new records for Lalanne and other notable designers.

Heralded as the most valuable single-owner design sale in Sotheby’s history, the collection of Jean and Terry de Gunzburg lived up to expectations. The April 22 Collection of Jean & Terry de Gunzburg – Design Masters sale at the auction house’s Breuer headquarters closed white glove with a total of $96 million across 107 lots against an initial estimate of $28.5-42.5 million to become the most valuable design collection ever sold in the U.S. With 94 percent of lots selling above their pre-sale high estimates, the results not only confirmed the ongoing Lalanne momentum but also the sustained demand for Art Deco and late 20th-century design more broadly.

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The sale further confirmed that excellent provenance, combined with strategic storytelling around iconic collections, continues to fuel bidder enthusiasm. “This was a true watershed moment for the design market—a real recalibration of what the very best of 20th-century design and decorative arts can command on the global stage,” said Jodi Pollack, Sotheby’s chairman of 20th Century Design and Major Collections. For Pollack, the de Gunzburg collection redrew the horizon in many ways, setting a benchmark the market will be measuring itself against for years to come.

All the lots in the sale came from the de Gunzburgs’ Upper East Side apartment, designed by acclaimed decorator Jacques Grange who shaped the interiors of figures such as Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, from whom some of the pieces also originated. Terry de Gunzburg worked closely with Yves Saint Laurent and his Beauté division, serving as creative director before founding her own brand, By Terry, in 1998. Her husband, an internationally renowned molecular and cell biologist, held senior positions at the Institut Curie and later achieved distinction in the biotech industry. Together, they spent four decades assembling one of the most dynamic private collections of 20th-century avant-garde works.

Leading the sale was an extraordinary ensemble of 15 mirrors by Claude Lalanne for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, which fetched $33.5 million against an estimate of $10-15 million, setting a new auction record for the artist. The result immediately eclipsed the previous benchmark of £3.6 million ($4.8 million) achieved by Unique Structure Végétale Mirror and Wall Light at Sotheby’s record-breaking Pauline Karpidas Evening Auction last September in London. Crucially, for Claude—who for a long time lived somewhat in the market shadow of her husband—the result also surpassed François-Xavier Lalanne’s Hippopotame Bar, pièce unique, which fetched $31.4 million last December at the first design sale Sotheby’s hosted at the Breuer. Pursued by five bidders in a spirited 10-minute battle, the ensemble became the most expensive work of design ever........

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