Collection of Sir Peter Ustinov
– Oscar-Winning Actor, Playwright, Raconteur & Humanitarian
Live Auction at Sotheby’s Paris Led by Paintings by Renoir & Vallotton,
Alongside Treasured Film Memorabilia
Online Sale Remains Open for Bidding until 5pm Tomorrow
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The personal collection of Sir Peter Ustinov (1921-2004), Oscar-winning actor and playwright, brought together works that pay tribute to his family legacy and his love of art, as well as personal items including film memorabilia and annotated typescripts. 65 lots totalled €2,111,756 / $2,297,379, with over 90% of the lots finding new homes and almost two-thirds selling for prices in excess of their high estimates.
The sale was led by Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s La Liseuse (Lot 45), the star of Sir Peter’s fine art collection, which was bought by a European private collector for €952,500. Originally owned by Ambroise Vollard, the joyful painting had last been seen at auction in 1965. Further fine art highlights included:
- Two works by Félix Vallotton: Baigneurs à Dieppe (Lot 43), sold for €444,500, and Verger avec cochons (Lot 50), sold for €190,500.
- All four works by Turkish artist Avni Arbas exceeded their estimates, led by an untitled painting from 1967 (Lot 64) which sold for more than five times its estimate at €48,260 – a record for the artist.
- Oskar Kokoschka, Cornish Landscape (Lot 42), sold for €31,750.
- A work by 20th-century French painter Roger Mühl, Les îles de Lérins (Lot 69), sold for €26,670, more than five times its estimate.
The auction also shone a light on Sir Peter’s public side, and the items he kept after the cameras stopped rolling. Highlights from his cinema career included:
- Peter Ustinov’s Golden Globe Award for Quo Vadis in 1951 (Lot 58), sold for €6,985 (estimate: €2,000-3,000).
- Screenplays for Spartacus (written by Dalton Trumbo, directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1960), with drawings and annotations by Ustinov, along with the shooting schedule (Lot 57), sold for €5,080, almost eight times its estimate of €500-800.
- Peter Ustinov’s Academician sword, made by his son, sculptor Igor Ustinov, for his election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1987 (Lot 51), sold for a more than double-estimate €4,445.
Tonight’s sale featured a number of unseen works by Sir Peter’s family of artists, his great-uncle Alexandre Benois, his mother Nadia Benois and cousin Zinaida Serebriakova. Highlights included:
- Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova, Portrait of Peter Ustinov as a Boy (Lot 12), soared to multiples of its estimate at €76,200 (estimate: €15,000-20,000).
- The auction offered four of Alexandre Benois’ set designs for the original production of Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, which premiered in Paris in 1911, all of which exceeded their high estimates. This was led by The Shrovetide Fair (Lot 1), which sold for €21,590 (estimate: €6,000-8,000).
The online auction continues to be open for bidding until tomorrow (7 July) at 5pm CET, offering almost 80 further lots from the collection, including costumes, manuscripts of short stories, plays and films and awards.
In May of this year in New York, a work from Sir Peter’s collection was offered in Sotheby’s Modern Day Auction in New York, on 17 May – Rufino Tamayo’s Mujer en un interior (1970) sold for $609,600 / €560,600 (est. $400,000-600,000).
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