Independent Art Market Advisors for Collectors + Estates
A multi-generational family business, successfully navigating high-value art transactions for over 50 years; with discretion, integrity, and a fiduciary approach to protecting your interests
Services
Estate Advisory
+Strategic Guidance for Estates with Significant Art Assets
Fine art and significant personal property require specialized handling when they enter the estate process — and the experience is different for everyone involved.
Families are dealing with decisions that are often emotional and unfamiliar. Attorneys and financial advisors are navigating markets unlike any other asset class. Executors and trustees must document and defend every action.
Independent, specialised counsel is frequently missing.
Art+Estates fills that gap.
We work alongside your team; executors, trustees, estate attorneys, art lawyers, and wealth advisors to provide independent counsel, rigorous valuation, and disciplined market strategy—ensuring assets are positioned thoughtfully and managed with integrity throughout the disposition process.
View Meules à Giverny Sale Coverage
We represented the estate in the sale of this work by Claude Monet. Selected highlights are below:
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We discreetly negotiate across leading auction houses to secure the most favorable terms — analyzing proposals, structuring guarantees, and overseeing all due diligence and marketing commitments to drive competitive outcomes.
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We coordinate and oversee independent USPAP-compliant appraisals to ensure defensible valuations that meet IRS, estate, and fiduciary standards, as well as fair market value and insurance appraisals.
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Drawing on decades of transactional experience, we provide rigorous market research and valuation analysis grounded in comparable sales data, supply and demand trends, and asset-specific positioning.
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We conduct rigorous pre-sale due diligence — examining provenance, title, authenticity, and condition — identifying and resolving any issues that could compromise outcomes for the assets in the estate.
Services
Private Sales
Marketing Intelligence + Sourcing
Nearly a trillion dollars in art and collectibles is expected to change hands over the next decade. Much of it will happen privately — no auction room, no public record, just the right work finding the right home.
Many collectors prefer it that way. Private sales offer discretion, control over timing and price, and the kind of personal relationships that a public sale simply can't replicate. But this market operates without published results, public comparables, or a regulated process — which means having someone you trust in your corner matters enormously.
For buyers — we find works you won't see listed anywhere else. For sellers — we find the right buyer, quietly and on your terms.
Whether you're building a collection, considering a single acquisition, or planning for a deaccession; every engagement begins with listening — and is guided by research, market intelligence, confidentiality and a singular focus on your objectives.
Services
Auction Advisory
Strategic Counsel for Buyers + Sellers
Major auction houses are extraordinary venues — global platforms that concentrate attention, generate competitive energy, and create compelling opportunities for both buyers and sellers. But behind the spectacle is a complex commercial process with financial terms, contractual structures, and strategic variables that significantly impact outcomes.
Understanding those mechanics — and having independent counsel to clarify, negotiate, and advocate — helps buyers acquire with confidence and sellers maximize net proceeds while mitigating risk.
Pre-sale analysis, due diligence, and strategic negotiation are the tools that turn opportunity into successful outcomes. We provide that expertise, representing only you — with no undisclosed conflicts of interest.
Services
Collection Management
Comprehensive Stewardship for Discerning Collectors + Family Offices
Great collections aren't just acquired — they're cultivated through proactive stewardship, rigorous documentation, and strategic guidance that anticipates both opportunity and risk.
We provide holistic collection management — from appraisal coordination and conservation planning to market intelligence, museum loans, logistics, and legacy planning.
Working with hand-picked, vetted experts in every area, our oversight is comprehensive and always aligned with your long-term objectives.
Maximilien Luce, Baigneuses à Saint-Tropez, 1892, Sold for $4,527,000, setting a new record for the artist at auction.
Notable Achievements
Select Institutional, Private + Auction Transactions
Notable Museum Acquisitions
We were entrusted by the owner of a major French Impressionist painting to represent his interests in an acquisition by the Louvre Abu Dhabi — a transaction that required navigating institutional protocols, governmental oversight, complex contract negotiations, and shipping and insurance risk mitigation on a tight deadline.
Throughout the process, we managed our client's interests and risk tolerance at every stage, balancing the significance of an extraordinary institutional placement with the practical realities of deal structure, timing, and execution.
Working alongside trusted colleagues, we also facilitated the placement of a Monet water lilies from the Rockefeller Collection with a distinguished private collector in Asia — a transaction that required cultural fluency and diplomatic sensitivity in addition to the comprehensive due diligence and transaction management our clients expect as a matter of course.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum.
Claude Monet (detail)
Notable Market Strategy + Auction Sales
Over the course of half a decade, a prominent Northeast family entrusted us to steward the disposition of their art collection valued at $100 million.
Strategic positioning in both private sale and at auction produced results that substantially exceeded the professional estimates of other advisors.
From the same collection, we discreetly market tested the pricing for a rare 1893 painting and ultimately secured favorable terms for the marquis auction sales that resulted in a new world record for the artist.
An Eye for Impressionism: Property from an Important American Estate, preview exhibition, 2024.
Modern Evening Auction, Sotheby's NY, May 17, 2022. Record price achieved.
Notable Private Sales
A rare van Gogh landscape, placed privately with an American collection.
A significant collection of Impressionist and Modern works, assembled over a decade.
Seven-figure transactions for works including Cézanne, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Cassatt, Rodin, Bonnard, Picasso, Matisse, Léger, Warhol, Johns, Twombly, Frankenthaler, Mitchell, and other twentieth-century masters.
Get in Touch
Interested in discussing a fine art acquisition, sale, or estate strategy? Art+Estates provides independent advisory services for collectors, fiduciaries, attorneys, and professional advisors navigating significant art assets. Call +1 646-535-9542 to schedule a confidential consultation.