Van Cliburn Art, Jewels Fetch $4.3 Million In Christie's Auction

NEW YORK — Art, jewelry and furnishings collected by the pianist Van Cliburn has fetched over $4.3 million at an auction in New York City.

Christie's auction house says Thursday's sale featured more than 150 items including English furniture, Russian art, silver and jewels.

The highlight of the sale was a pair of George II giltwood mirrors attributed to Mathias Lock. They were sold for over $464,000. They had been estimated to bring between $150,000 and $250,000. The price includes the buyer's premium.

Born in Louisiana and raised in Texas, Cliburn says in a news release that he collected some of the pieces to remind him of concerts in various cities around the world.

Now 77, Cliburn was 23 in 1958 when he became world famous by winning a piano competition in Moscow.

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Comments

[gibby1855]

11:31 PM on 05/18/2012

4.3 million is nothing to worry about he can still eat. At some point in life it's time to clean house, best wishes for him

[savvy7]

05:02 PM on 05/18/2012

What a shame to know that someone as gifted as Maestro Cliburn is forced to part with his treasures in order to continue his life. I, for one, will never forget the pride I felt as a student of the piano, a lover of classical music and an American (not necessarily in that order) when he won the 1958 Tchaikovsky competition at the height of the "Cold War". I still have the LP, as worn as it is by repeated playings and I have never heard so tonally modulated a command of arpeggios performed by any player before or since Van Cliburn's performance.