A Seagram Heir, a Bankrupt Hedge Funder, and More: Consignors for the November Marquee Sales Revealed

What a difference a year makes. The marquee New York sales return in just under two weeks, and while galleries still seem to be on a market seesaw, the auction houses have found a new, lucrative normal. When in doubt, just sell A+ material by established blue-chip artists with impeccable provenance. Sounds simple, right?

One suspects the auction houses’ specialists and rainmakers have found the task easier after a solid season last November, topped by Sotheby’s record-shattering sale of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16) for $236.4 million. May was even more impressive: sales topped $2.5 billion across Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, roughly double the $1.3 billion the three houses took in during May 2025.

Provenance always matters in the art market, but in a more selective environment it has become essential to the success of each house’s sales. So much so that we seem to have moved from a time when each house had one or two single-owner mega-sales each season—like say, the $1.5 billion Paul Allen sale in 2022—to one in which a hefty share of the lots in each sale carry a named consignor.

To wit, 40 of the 79 lots in Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale have named consignors, and that doesn’t include the seven lots carrying the Heroes & Lovers label, which it is an open secret were consigned by artist Jeff Koons. In Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale, 35 of the 58 lots have a named consignor. Over at Sotheby’s, 22 of the 53 lots in The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction have a named consignor. The trend is less pronounced in the Modern Evening Auction, where only 13 of the 50 lots have a named consignor. But perhaps that’s because another 11 lots come from a single private American collection billed as “Shaping Modernity.” More on that one in a minute.

So why are there so many big-name collections coming to auction? Part of it is just timing, according to art adviser Meredith Darrow. Several major estates have come to market over the past few auction seasons, and auction houses have always been happy to put a famous collector’s name on a sale. But there’s another reason to make more noise about provenance these days. With the auction market still trying to recover from its post-Covid slump, a well-known name can help drum up interest and, potentially, push prices higher.

“Auction houses will do anything they can to promote the value of the works,” Darrow told ARTnews. “Calling out a notable provenance would and should increase interest and value of the work.”

It would be reasonable to assume, then, with all the named collectors, that there is little left for your favorite art sleuths to dig up in the paper trail of catalogues raisonnés, exhibition histories, and old press clippings. That would be wrong. There was no shortage of provenance breadcrumbs among this season’s lots, and ARTnews is happy to share them.

First off, as we reported last week, the cover lot of Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale, Wassily Kandinsky’s Betonte Ecken (1922–23), was consigned by the Nahmads, the prominent art-dealing and collecting dynasty. It carries an estimate of $60–$80 million.

The same sale includes an untitled 1968 acrylic on paper by Mark Rothko (estimate $10–$15 million), which appears to have been consigned by Ed Rabin, the former president of Hyatt Hotels, and his wife, Jackie. The work, two crimson fields hovering over a scarlet ground, last sold in 1997, and a 2023 catalogue lists it as being in the Rabins’ collection.

Two lots in the sale carry the label “Surrealist Masterpieces from an Important American Collection,” and both point to Clarissa and Edgar Bronfman Jr. Edgar is a billionaire business executive and an heir to the Seagram fortune. The first, Wifredo Lam’s 1943 work Ogue Orisa (Eggue Orissa, l’herbe des dieux), estimated at $10–$15 million, appeared in MoMA’s recent Lam retrospective, where the Bronfmans were listed as lenders. The second, Roberto Matta’s Science, conscience et patience du vitreur (1944), carries an estimate of $5–$7 million. It also appears in a 2016 Architectural Digest feature on the couple’s penthouse.

The pickings were slimmer in Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale. That’s partly because the works sold more recently, and partly because, as noted above, 60 percent of the lots already have a listed consignor. Still, we found that Ed Ruscha’s Male and Female (1987), estimated at $4–$6 million, was consigned by architect and real estate developer William Ehrlich and Ruth Lloyds. According to the provenance, they bought it directly from the artist, and Robert Dean and Erin Wright’s 2007 catalogue raisonné lists it in their collection.

Meanwhile, Vija Celmins’s Night Sky #21 (2009–13), estimated at $3–$5 million, appears to have been consigned by the Roman family, at least according to the catalogue for the Fondation Beyeler’s Celmins show last year. That appears to be Emannuel Roman, the CEO of investment firm PIMCO.

Back to Sotheby’s: in addition to the 11 lots in the Modern Evening Auction, one lot in The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction carries the “Shaping Modernity” label. A source with knowledge of the consignment told ARTnews that the consignor behind the group is George Weiss, the hedge fund founder now in bankruptcy. As Bloomberg reported in June, Weiss asked a Florida bankruptcy judge for permission to sell a 1972 self-portrait by Francis Bacon. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Weiss had struck a deal with Sotheby’s to sell more than a dozen works to repay a Bank of America loan. The Bacon will now be offered in The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction with an estimate of $10–$15 million. Additional Highlights include Paul Signac’s Collioure. Les Balancelles (Opus 167) (estimate $12–$18 million), Camille Pissarro’s Hameau aux environs de Pontoise (estimate $2.5–$3.5 million), Henri Matisse’s La Jetée à Collioure (estimate $5–$7 million), and Paul Cézanne’s L’Oncle Dominique (estimate $3–$5 million).

Two Agnes Martin works in The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, Innocence (1999) and Untitled #2 (1991), were last exhibited at the Froehlich Foundation (Stiftung Froehlich). That would be the private museum outside Stuttgart, Germany, that was built to house the collection of ARTnews Top 200 Collectors Anna and Josef Froehlich. Martin’s catalogue raisonné lists the foundation as the owner of Innocence, and both works carry the label “Property from a Distinguished European Collection.” Connect the dots.

Then there’s Salman Toor’s Lavender Boy (estimate $60,000–$80,000). In a 2021 interview with Larry’s List, Rob and Eric Thomas-Suwall, the collectors behind the Instagram account @theicygays, named the Toor as the most treasured piece in their collection.

If you’re wondering which “Mid-Atlantic Institution” is deaccessioning its untitled Lee Bontecou sculpture, you need only look at the exhibition history. The work, estimated at $1.2–$1.8 million, has had just one owner and has been on view at Bryn Athyn College in Pennsylvania for the past 13 years.

Speaking of deaccessioning: Keith Haring’s portrait of Grace Jones (estimate $3.5–$5 million) was last exhibited at Museum MACAN in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 2021 to 2022. The museum’s 2021 exhibition guide lists the work as part of its collection. But as the Art Newspaper noted when the private museum opened in 2017, most of its collection comes from the holdings of its founder, Top 200 Collector Haryanto Adikoesoemo. So who the actual consignor is remains a little fuzzy.

Lastly, four works in Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction and one in The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction carry the label “Magnum Opus: A Private Collection of Exceptional Art and Objects Through the Ages.” Which collector, pray tell, is behind such a weighty title? Edgar Degas’s 1882 drawing Danseuse rajustant son chausson proved to be the key to this particular treasure chest. According to Michel Schulman’s digital catalogue raisonné of Degas’s work, the drawing belongs to the Frederick Iseman Art Trust. The trust is also credited with the work in the catalogue for MoMA’s 2016 exhibition “Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty.”

The collection points to private equity investor Frederick Iseman and includes works by Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, and David Smith in this month’s evening sales. Iseman, who founded CI Capital Partners in 1993, is also Helen Frankenthaler’s nephew and a former president of her foundation. He made headlines in 2023 when he sued his fellow board members, accusing them of exploiting his aunt’s legacy for their own benefit. The dispute turned particularly nasty, with accusations flying in both directions, before a New York judge dismissed the case on procedural grounds in September 2024 without ruling on the allegations themselves.

For all the attention Sotheby’s has lavished on the “Magnum Opus” collection, Iseman’s name appears nowhere in its marketing. And there has been plenty of attention: the collection numbers more than 900 objects, ranging from ancient Roman sculpture and old master paintings to Impressionist art and 20th-century design. More than 600 of them were offered across four dedicated sales in October, with a combined presale estimate of more than $60 million. Sotheby’s even took over four floors of the Breuer building for a public exhibition ahead of the auctions.

(And, as usual, spokespeople for Christie’s and Sotheby’s told ARTnews that they cannot comment on the identities of consignors.)