This past weekend a hundred or so items from Patricia Kluge's Albemarle House went to auction and almost of all of them found a buyer. "We had about four hundred and fifty registered bidders and about two hundred of them were here in person," said Elizabeth Wainstein, owner of the auction house Potomack Company. They haven't tallied up the final sales total yet since the items that didn't sell have written offers that the auction team is still processing, but overall Wainstein considers the auction a success.
Curbed found a few still-available items such as a set of Samuel Johnson dictionaries estimated to be worth between five and eight thousand dollars and a number of African statues and masks that range in prices from less than a hundred dollars to the low thousands. Bidders were allowed to leave written offers so they might be gone before the end of the week. The next Potomack Company auction will be in September, but Wainstein is not yet sure if any Kluge items will be included.
Some of the most successful items to sell were the curtains designed by David Easton from the 1980s, which all sold at prices in the thousands of dollars—including one that went for $14,000. Another big seller was a group of four matching ornate rifles that had never been fired and had been gifted to Kluge by the King of Spain. Final price: $25,000.
· Potomack Company [Official Site]
· Patricia Kluge Draperies From Albemarle House Go To The Auction Block [WaPo]