June Auction Season Brings Rare Old Masters, Studio Glass, and Celebrity Provenance
A gold-mounted Dresden box that has not been publicly seen for more than a century is among the most closely watched objects heading to auction this month. The Christian Gottlieb Stiehl (active 18th century) steinkabinett, made around 1770, will appear in Sotheby’s sale of The Collection of Maurice Tempelsman in New York on June 24, with an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000.
The box is one of only about ten recorded examples, and it last surfaced at auction in 1906. Before Maurice Tempelsman acquired it, the object was known largely through a single black-and-white illustration. Its sides are decorated in zellenmosaik, an 18th-century technique in which polished hardstones are set within gold borders, while the lid carries a floral inlay of roses, carnations, and forget-me-nots. A hidden sliding compartment contains a handwritten booklet cataloguing each stone and its origin.
The Tempelsman sale also reflects the collector’s long public profile. The Belgian American diamond magnate was perhaps best known to many Americans as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s final companion, but his collection points to a more private passion for objects of unusual craftsmanship and historical rarity.
In London, Christie’s will offer two Jan van Huysum still lifes separately during its Old Masters Evening Sale on June 30, each estimated at around £3 million. Flowers in a Terracotta Vase (1734) and Fruit and flowers in a wicker basket (1720s) were paired in the later 19th century, when Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild commissioned matching gilt wood frames that remain with them today. Their provenance includes prominent 18th-century Dutch collections and ownership by Willem II of the Netherlands. When they last appeared at auction more than 20 years ago, they set records for the artist.
Bonhams will present Diane Keaton: The Architecture of an Icon in New York on June 8, with Maynard Dixon’s Train on the Desert (1941) estimated at $20,000 to $40,000. Keaton’s sale spans fine art, home furnishings, designer clothing, and personal effects, including her script for Annie Hall (1977), underscoring how single-owner auctions have become a major market force.
Phillips will follow with A Life in Color: Property from the Estate of Tina Hills on June 12, where William Morris’s Hanging “Petroglyph” (1993) carries an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000. The blown-glass work draws on prehistoric cave paintings and rock carvings, a reminder that Morris helped expand studio glass beyond decorative form into something more archaeological and image-driven.
Taken together, the sales sketch a season shaped by rarity, provenance, and the continuing appetite for objects with both visual force and documented history.
