38 ARCHDIGEST.COM
1 & 3. SOTHEBY’S/ARTDIGITAL STUDIO; 2. © GÉRARD DELORME
AUCTIONS
Prime Ribes
A glamorous French couple’s
treasures make for a
spectacular Sotheby’s sale
F
ashion designer, arts patron, and writer Jacqueline
de Ribes—hailed as the “last queen of Paris”—has
the star power, but Édouard de Ribes, her banker
husband, had the goods. “A lot of journalists are
focusing on the comtesse because she was so
beautiful and so iconic, but the collection was cre-
ated over six generations by a family that became rich and grew
richer,” said Mario Tavella, the chairman of Sotheby’s Europe
and the president–director general of Sotheby’s France, which
is offering part one of La Collection Ribes on December 11 and
- (Part two will be sold in spring 2020.) Descendant of a royal
finance official who was ennobled in 1816, Édouard de Ribes,
who died in 2013, was the sixth count of the line and the inheri-
tor of not only a family fortune but also a vast, treasure-packed
1. A SALON AT JACQUELINE AND ÉDOUARD DE RIBES’S PARIS
MANSION. THE CONTENTS ARE BEING SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S
THIS DECEMBER AND IN SPRING 2020. 2. JACQUELINE AND
ÉDOUARD DE RIBES AT HOME IN PARIS. 3. THE DE RIBESES’
LIBRARY, WHERE EMPIRE FURNITURE JOINS RARE BOOKS.
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1860s hôtel particulier in Paris, which his widow, now 90,
still uses. Museum-quality pieces, many of them acquired by
his great-grandfather in the 19th century, go on the block this
month; part of the proceeds will go to the de Ribeses’ favor-
ite charities. “The most important are the three bronzes that
belonged to Louis XIV,” Tavella explains. “The most sophis-
ticated is Marie-Antoinette’s musical clock, and the most
elegant is an Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun painting that belonged
to a brother of Louis XVI. In terms of provenance, it’s the best
we’ve sold in probably five years.” sothebys.com —MITCHELL OWENS
DISCOVERIES
