Estate of prominent Gilded Age couple yields treasures for Heritage sale, Feb. 10

Gold friendship ring artist Winslow Homer gave to Helena de Kay, estimated at $2,000-$4,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Gold friendship ring artist Winslow Homer gave to Helena de Kay, estimated at $2,000-$4,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

DALLAS – Historians have long considered the significance of the Gilded Age era and the artistic legacy of New York City in American life. Helena de Kay and Richard Watson Gilder, a married couple who cultivated an expansive creative circle, were at the very center of it. Heritage Auctions is pleased to present the first and only comprehensive access to the couple’s estate, including precious artworks and the personal possessions of the family and their famous friends, and the much-coveted paintings and drawings of Helena de Kay herself. The Gilded Age: Property from the Collection of Richard Watson Gilder and Helena de Kay Gilder takes place Friday, February 10. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

Richard Watson Gilder was the editor-in-chief of the illustrated periodical Scribner’s (and later The Century), and Helena de Kay was a gifted artist; their homes and studios in New York City and Massachusetts were the stomping grounds of such luminaries as Winslow Homer, Stanford White, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Cecilia Beaux and Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the name Mark Twain. Through his immensely successful publications, Gilder shaped an entire American sensibility of writing, art and illustration by championing such greats as James McNeil Whistler, John Singer Sargent and Saint-Gaudens, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Moran, Thomas Eakins and Frederic Remington.

Portrait of Helena de Kay by Wyatt Eaton, estimated at $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Portrait of Helena de Kay by Wyatt Eaton, estimated at $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

De Kay, a one-time student of Winslow Homer (his portrait of her is in the collection of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid) helped launch the Arts Students League and the Society of American Artists, and, salon-style, brought together writers, painters, sculptors and actors who debated the latest developments in art world. “With her weekly Friday night gatherings, Helena de Kay effectively crafted an environment that allowed [her husband] Gilder to become entirely ensconced in the New York contemporary art scene,” wrote Columbia University art historian Page Knox. “The Gilders played a uniquely progressive role in the late nineteenth century, participating in the meteoric rise of print media, helping to establish and promote a new American art world, supporting female artists, illustrators and critics, and acting as the cultural tastemakers of their time.”

Portrait of Richard Watson Gilder by Cecilia Beaux, estimated at $50,000-$70,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Portrait of Richard Watson Gilder by Cecilia Beaux, estimated at $50,000-$70,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

To get a better picture of the couple, consider their portraits as created by Wyatt Eaton and Cecilia Beaux. Beaux is widely considered one of the finest woman painters active in America at the turn of the previous century and is commonly ranked alongside John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt as one of the most significant portrait painters in American history. “Beaux’s masterful and harmonious Portrait of Richard Watson Gilder is a replica of the artist’s seminal portrait of Richard Watson Gilder from 1902-03 that is part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.,” said Senior Vice President of American Art at Heritage Aviva Lehmann. “Beaux created this reductive portrait as a gift for her close friends Richard and Helena, as both a token of affection and of gratitude for initiating her career.”

Wyatt Eaton, the Canadian-American figure painter and co-founder of the Society of American Artists, created his Portrait of Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder (Helena de Kay) as a quietly fond portrait of his composed and smiling friend. It communicates the warmth and trust of true friendship. So close were the two artists that de Kay thought nothing of adding flowers to the work in an effort to brighten the composition.

Helena de Kay, ‘Portrait of Dorothea,’ estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Helena de Kay, ‘Portrait of Dorothea,’ estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

The historic significance of this event may be centered on a selection of paintings and drawings by Helena de Kay: Never before has her work been presented for sale to the public and only a handful of her paintings have been privately collected by major institutions, including one currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its exhibition New York Art Worlds, 1870-1890. Helena, a true “super-connector,” was central to this world, though she wasn’t bombastic about self-promotion and instead threw her weight behind the careers of her more famous friends. In spite of or because of this, de Kay’s works are of ever-increasing interest to the public, and they back up their myth-making import with a sure-handed confidence and charm. Both Portrait of Dorothea and Water Lilies show de Kay’s ease with oil paint, and Flower Study brings us into de Kay’s rangy play with watercolor and pencil on paper. Her sketches, landscapes and botanical studies, in her signature relaxed composition, join this event. De Kay imbues her work with the intimacy of late-night conversations in the studio; it just so happens that her closest friends were the era’s greatest artists. By all accounts, they had endless affection for de Kay and her work.

The rather bohemian and expansive set of friends whom Gilder and de Kay hosted at their townhouse and studio on East Fifteenth Street in Gramercy Park, as well as at Four Brooks Farm, their rural estate in the Berkshires, is known to this day as “The Gilder Circle.” It’s difficult to know if these figures had any idea that their shared chemistry and output would make such a beloved and enduring history. Mementos, gifts and items that exemplify the love and connection between these figures are in this event. According to the family, artist Winslow Homer gave this gold ring to de Kay, inscribed with the phrase Ami Pour la Vie, which translates to “friend for life.” (Historian S. Burns writes, “Some have speculated that de Kay was the woman whose rejection confirmed Homer’s status as an inveterate bachelor.”)

Helena de Kay’s wedding dress and trousseau (not shown), estimated at $2,000-$3,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Helena de Kay’s wedding dress and trousseau (not shown), estimated at $2,000-$3,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

It’s hard to overstate the tender familiarity these objects had with Gilder friends and family. De Kay’s wedding dress and trousseau, dating to circa 1874, are here, and the lot includes her kid gloves and a monogrammed corset cover. The recognizable navy cape worn by Gilder in the portrait by Cecelia Beaux that’s in the National Portrait Gallery is here as well: It’s in good condition, trimmed in black and lined in crimson.

Cape worn by Richard Watson Gilder in his Cecilia Beaux portrait, estimated at $2,000-$3,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Cape worn by Richard Watson Gilder in his Cecilia Beaux portrait, estimated at $2,000-$3,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

This is just an introduction to the nearly 200 items in this event; in April, in an additional auction without reserve, Heritage will offer the Gilders’ historic summer home, Four Brooks Farms, visited by Gilder friends Grover Cleveland, Samuel Clemens, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Winslow Homer. The 159-acre estate is in Tyringham, Massachusetts, Berkshire County, and includes a main house and a guest house, with expansive pasture land plus four barns, livestock pens, a walled garden with a spring-fed plunge pool, nature trails, sparkling brooks, and a duck pond. The house’s scrolled pillars are believed to have been designed and given to the family by famed architect Stanford White himself. It embodies the very kind of rich and magnificent American history that Clemens, writing as Mark Twain, might describe as “dazzling … a bewildering marvel.”

 

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