astor-ia

You Can Buy Brooke Astor’s ‘Dog Pictures’ at Sotheby’s

“Mrs. Vincent Astor, Seated,” by Aaron Shikler, 1983. Photo: Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s announced today that it will auction off an estimated $5 million worth of goods from the estate of Brooke Astor this spring. The auction will mostly consist of items from her Park Avenue and Westchester homes. Sotheby’s hasn’t offered up extensive detail, other than to say that there will be “dog pictures, drawings, works of art and jewelry.” So if you want to take home a tangential piece of scandal history, bid on one of those pet portraits: One of the most-cited details in the coverage of the 2009 trial, in which her son Anthony Marshall was found guilty of stealing from his mother’s estate, is that he refused to take her dogs outside to do their business, and the wealthy socialite thus spent her days on a squalid couch soaked with canine urine. Or you could go for the jewelry, which Mrs. Astor didn’t want her son to inherit lest his wife wear it; she reportedly once said, “I don’t want that woman to wear my jewelry because she doesn’t have the neck to wear my jewelry.”Also on offer will be an Aaron Shikler portrait of Mrs. Astor from 1983. That’s the kind of thing that usually gets handed down sentimentally to the kids. Not this time!

Brooke Astor’s ‘Dog Pictures’ at Sotheby’s