A trove of old masters put together by Thomas A. Saunders III, a former chairman of the influential conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, and his wife, Jordan, is going to auction in New York in May. Sotheby’s is billing it as one of the greatest collections of such works to come to market “in living memory,” and estimates it will raise at least $80 million.
Saunders, who died in 2022 at the age of 86, was a Wall Street banker and private equity executive. A passionate conservative, Saunders served as the chairman of the Heritage Foundation from 2009 to 2018 and in 2010 was instrumental in the formation of its Heritage Action organization. More recently, the foundation’s Project 2025 policy initiative is said to have provided the blueprint for much of President Trump’s downsizing of the federal government.
Saunders and his wife also found time to become prolific buyers of fine old master paintings. Most of the couple’s 60 pictures were acquired between 1998 and 2000 to complement the classic décor of their Upper East Side apartment on 75th Street, near Park Avenue.
“They were a close and funny couple,” George Wachter, a Sotheby’s chairman and the co-worldwide head of old master paintings, said in an interview.
“They wanted old masters; they told me to go out and get the best of the best,” added Wachter, who acted as the couple’s unofficial art adviser.
The prized core of the collection is a group of eight high-quality paintings acquired privately for an undisclosed sum in 1999 from the Canadian philanthropist and collector Michal Hornstein, who was based in Montreal.
Among these Hornstein pictures is Thomas Lawrence’s slickly painted early-19th-century “Portrait of Miss Julia Peel,” featuring the eldest child of the British Prime Minister Robert Peel holding a squirming spaniel. This will be offered by Sotheby’s with an estimate of $6 million to $8 million. A rare “Still Life With Cauliflower, Basket of Fish, Eggs, and Leeks, and Kitchen Utensils” by the mid-18th-century Spanish painter Luis Meléndez — which had hung in the Saunderses’ opulent Manhattan dining room — is valued at $5 million to $8 million. The collection also includes gems by the 17th-century Dutch artists Adriaen Coorte, Gerrit Dou and Salomon van Ruysdael.
“Jordan was the driver; she loved the paintings, but he did too,” said Wachter, who added that Thomas would settle the bills.
“They were buying beautiful things; it didn’t matter if it wasn’t by Rembrandt,” said Wachter, explaining that the couple’s primary motivation was to decorate their home rather than acquire masterpieces by the most famous names.
Jordan Saunders’s enthusiasm for old masters started when she saw a small, atmospheric view of Venice in a work by the mid-18th-century painter Francesco Guardi at Sotheby’s in 1998. “It was a little jewel, and all afternoon I kept coming back to visit it,” Saunders recalled in a Sotheby’s media release. “Perhaps you’ll think me crazy, but I swear I heard that little picture speak to me, ‘Please buy me, buy me.’” The picture (which, coincidentally, had been consigned by Hornstein) was duly bought by the Saunderses for $1.3 million.
The Guardi will reappear in May, estimated at $4 million to $6 million. A larger pair of views of Venice by the coveted Rococo-period artist are the most ambitiously valued works in the sale at $10 million to $15 million. (These had been bought at auction in 2020 for $5.6 million.)
Sotheby’s, which has been mired in debt and has laid off staff, said that it had guaranteed the Saunders family minimum prices on all the lots in the sale. As has become common in recent years, the auction house will aim to transfer at least some of the bigger house guarantees to third-party “irrevocable bidders” in the run-up to the auction.
With its minimum valuation of $80 million, the Saunderses’ collection represents the most valuable specialist single-owner auction of old master paintings in recent years, Wachter said.
The old masters could do with a boost, as could the rest of a slumping art market. Historic paintings have fallen out of fashion with wealthy collectors in recent years, and research conducted by the London-based art market analytics firm ArtTactic indicated that last year, old master auction sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s declined by 44 percent compared with those in 2023.
“The average price of old masters has been in a downturn since 2022,” the ArtTactic report said. “These lower prices have been impacted significantly by the lack of single owner collection sales.”
