NEW YORK, NY.- A New York family occupied the same duplex in a Rosario Candela designed Fifth Avenue building ever since it was built in 1927, filling their home with masterworks. Now, Christie's offers the contents of this treasure house in a landmark sale series: Irene Roosevelt Aitken, Collector | Connoisseur | Patron. The five sales over the course of more than two weeks will offer almost 800 lots of porcelain, paintings, drawings, furniture, carpets, antique firearms and a dazzling array of objects of the absolute highest quality. The sales are organized to reflect the way the collection was displayed in the apartment. The three live auctions are Irene Roosevelt Aitken: The Dining Room and British Paintings (11 Feb.); Irene Roosevelt Aitken: The Drawing Room and French Paintings (12 Feb.), Irene Roosevelt Aitken: The Library, Bedrooms and Objects of Vertu (13 Feb.). Two online auctions A Love of the 18th Century (4-18 Feb.) and A Life on 5th Avenue (4-19 Feb.) – give collectors the opportunity to acquire pieces at a range of estimates.

The Aitken apartment transported you to the refinement and grandeur of the 18th century, and was steeped in history throughout. The collection is particularly rich in British and French society portraits such as Sir Thomas Lawrence's oil on canvas portrait of Lady Berkeley (estimate: $600,000-800,000) and Maurice-Quentin de la Tour's pastel pair of portraits depicting the Duc and Duchesse de Belle-Isle (estimate: $400,000-600,000). An extraordinary set of four decorative panels on the theme of the Four Seasons by Nicolas Lancret, reputed to have been commissioned by the Duc de Melun for his hôtel on the Place Royale, Paris (estimate: $800,000-1,200,000) hung in the drawing room, giving visitors a sense of the elegant interiors the people in portraits throughout the apartment would have lived in. The core of the collection was formed in the 1950s and 1960s by Annie Laurie, an artist and philanthropist (the British Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum are named in her honor) and her husband, Russell Barnett Aitken, who The New York Times described as “an artist, expert marksman, big-game hunter and adventure writer whose substantial philanthropy reflected his passions for art and sport.” The collection reflects a bygone age of American collecting, with pieces hailing from such fabled society figures as Thelma Chrysler Foy, Winston Guest, Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, and Elleanor Elkins Widener Rice. Their collecting was sensitively added to by Irene Roosevelt Aitken following her marriage to Russell in the 1980s. Irene Aitken continued collecting right to the end of her life this year, and her acquisitions reflect her commitment to quality, beauty, scholarship and provenance . To further Irene Aitken's legacy of generosity, proceeds of the sale of the collection will go to the three New York cultural institutions closest to her heart: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection and the Morgan Library and Museum.

A superb selection of objects graced every room of the duplex, including one of the world's greatest collections of gilt-bronze and blue john objets by the innovative and entrepreneurial 18th-century English silversmith Matthew Boulton, highlighted by a rare pair of George III ormolu-mounted blue John and aventurine blue glass 'Sphinx' perfume vases (estimate: $120,000-180,000). Other notable Georgian pieces include a pair of George III soup tureens from the fabled collection of silver formed by the Earls Brownlow at Belton House, sold at Christie's in 1929 and later in the equally legendary collection of William Randolp Hearst (estimate: $250,000-350,000). There is also a glittering collection of jewel-like objets de vertu in the collection including gold boxes and a select group of works by Fabergé such as a large and rare gold-mounted bloodstone snuff box by Fabergé (estimate: $100,000-150,000).

Whimsical Meissen porcelain birds and animals, precious mounted celadon porcelains, and Russell Aitken's world-famous collection of antique European arms (much of which were given to the Metropolitan Museum) are also part of the sales including such highlights as: a pair of Meissen porcelain models of golden orioles, of which other examples were delivered to Augustus the Strong (estimate: $20,000-30,000), and a Louis XV ormolu-mounted 18th century Chinese celadon porcelain vase, one of two vases in the sale sold at Christie's in 1965 from the celebrated collection of porcelain at Harewood House, Yorkshire (Estimate: $200,000-300,000). Another outstanding highlight of the sale is a spectacular Louis XIII Savonnerie carpet of unusually large scale and with the rare feature of a coat-of-arms depicting a castle, possibly indicating that it was commissioned by the prominent Castellane or Castille families (estimate $600,000-1,000,000). All of these arrayed among an impressive grouping of French and English furniture by distinguished makers such as Chippendale, Cobb, Ince and Mayhew, Leleu and BVRB.

With something for connoisseurs and new collectors alike, this auction series demonstrates the full breadth and depth of an extraordinary collection.

Mrs. Aitken's apartment at 990 Fifth Avenue was recently listed for sale by Christine Miller Martin with Compass for $20 million. This extraordinary and architecturally important 13-room pre-war duplex residence was once the childhood home of Sunny von Bulow. It boasts 11-foot ceilings, four bedrooms and five fireplaces, and is being offered for the first time in nearly a century, and remarkably with the original floor plan and details intact. Located across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art with breathtaking Central Park views, 990 Fifth Avenue, designed by Rosario Candela, the foremost architect of luxury pre-war apartment houses, consists of only six grand residences, offering unique intimacy, privacy, and exclusivity as well as the highest levels of service and security.