NEW YORK, N.Y.- Sotheby’s will offer a major sale of American Indian art including property from the Estate of Paul Peralta-Ramos, son of the Southwestern icon Millicent Rogers, the glamorous heiress to the Standard Oil fortune. Important and rare examples of Pueblo pottery, Hopi kachinas and New Mexican furniture highlight the collection, which was a result of a lifelong passion. The sale also includes an unprecedented number of classic and late classic Navajo blankets from three private collections, collections of early Northwest Coast and Eskimo masks, as well as California baskets. The property will be on exhibition at Sotheby’s from June 19th to the 23rd, and the sale is expected to fetch in excess of $1.8 million.

David Roche, Vice President and Director of Sotheby’s American Indian Art department, said: "This sale brings together an enormous range of American Indian artistic traditions. Mr. Peralta-Ramos’ personal collection, in particular, is a splendid combination of substance and style that reflects his love for the artistic traditions of the Southwest."

Paul Peralta-Ramos was the youngest son of Millicent Rogers, considered to be one of the most glamorous icons of the American Southwest and granddaughter of Henry Huttleston Rogers, a business partner of John D. Rockefeller’s in the Standard Oil Company. Millicent Rogers visited Taos, New Mexico, in 1948 and became enamored with the region, the people and their history. She decided to make Taos her home and built an adobe house that incorporated both American Indian and Spanish Colonial design. During this period, she became interested in other areas of Spanish and American Indian art and began collecting jewelry, kachinas, pottery and other related items from her visits to Indian tribes. By 1953, she had succeeded in assembling one of the finest collections in the Southwest and had significantly raised the profile of American Indian arts nationally. After Mrs. Rogers’s death, Mr. Peralta-Ramos believed that the collection should remain in Taos as an entity and worked fully to establish a living memorial, the Millicent Rogers Museum, dedicated to his mother’s legacy later that year. This selection from Mr. Paul Peralta-Ramos’ personal collection represents an opportunity for collectors to acquire objects with a distinguished provenance.