Sotheby’s has unveiled the contents of its Hôtel Lambert sales, a series of auctions of more than 1,000 lots from one of the finest private collections of classical works of art, beginning in Paris in October 2022. The collection was assembled at the Hôtel Lambert and is being shown for the first time since a landmark restoration of the building.
The Hôtel Lambert stands on the Île Saint-Louis and was built and decorated in the early 1640s by Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun and Eustache Le Sueur. Listed as a historical monument in 1862, it once counted Voltaire and the Rothschilds among its residents and hosted Chopin and Delacroix. Its restored interiors have housed the collection now coming to auction.
French furniture forms the core of the offering, including examples by André-Charles Boulle and Adam Weisweiler, alongside French gilt-bronze mounted porcelain vases and a group of porphyry vases. The collection also spans rock crystal works of art, silver and vermeil, Limoges enamels, antique jewels and objects of vertu, with pieces dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
Provenance across the collection reaches from Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry and Queen Marie-Antoinette through to later collectors such as Hubert de Givenchy, Karl Lagerfeld, Baron de Redé, Count Stroganoff, Richard Wallace, Misia Sert and Antenor Patiño. Ahead of the sales, audiences in Paris, London, Hong Kong and New York will be able to experience the interiors through specially created immersive digital spaces in Sotheby’s galleries.
The building itself passed through a long line of owners. In the 1740s the Marquise du Châtelet and Voltaire used it as their Paris residence; it was later bought by the Polish Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, drawing figures such as George Sand, Honoré de Balzac and Eugène Delacroix. Chopin was a frequent guest, and his La Polonaise was composed for the annual Polish ball held there. In 1975 Guy and Marie-Hélène Rothschild took residence.
The Hôtel Lambert was acquired in 2007 and restored under the supervision of Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al Thani and his family, with Alain-Charles Perrot as chief architect and interiors created in collaboration with the designer Alberto Pinto, at times following the style of Renzo Mongiardino. As ownership transfers once more, proceeds from the sale will support The Al Thani Collection Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing art and culture through public initiatives.
(Press Release)
