Sotheby’s to Sell Abstract, Expressionist, and Late-19th Century Masterpieces from the Weinberg Collection in May

Sotheby’s is selling several works from the estate of late Swiss collectors Rolf and Margit Weinberg in New York this spring. They span “masterpieces of the late 19th century to pioneering examples of early abstraction and expressionism,” the house said in a statement.

Lots from Modern Perspectives: The Collection of Rolf & Margit Weinberg, which will be sold during the house’s modern evening sale on May 13, include works by Edgar Degas, Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch, Henri Matisse, and Wassily Kandinsky. Paul Cézanne’s portrait of his wife, Hortense Fiquert – titled Portrait de Madame Cézanne (c. 1877) – will headline the auction.

Sotheby’s said the “visionary” Weinbergs “assembled one of Europe’s most distinguished collections over the past 50 years.” The house described Cézanne’s painting as “psychologically charged” and said his “enigmatic portraits of his wife – 29 in total, most held in major museum collections – are considered among the most important, yet misunderstood paintings of his oeuvre.”

Portrait de Madame Cézanne has a high estimate of $7 million. Matisse’s vibrant Le Bras (1938) has been given a $6 million high estimate. Sotheby’s said the latter is “an exquisite distillation of the female portraiture, costumes, and patterning that defines the output of Matisse’s celebrated Nice Period, while anticipating the expressive flattened space and form of his iconic late-career paper cut-outs.”

“These days, it is rare to encounter a collection that has been so meticulously assembled across decades, guided by true connoisseurship, an irrefutable sense for quality, and a constantly evolving eye always attuned to the present,” Lisa Dennison, Sotheby’s Americas chairman, said in a statement. “It is a cultural legacy of collecting in the purest sense.”

Schiele’s oil on canvas mounted on panel, titled Gewitterberg (Kapelle auf dem Kreuzberg bei Krumau) (1910), and Kandinsky’s Anfang (Beginning) (1925) – oil on board – are both expected to fetch between $2 million and $3 million.

Nick Deimel, senior vice president of modern art, Americas, said: “What is remarkable in the collection of Rolf and Margit Weinberg is not only the quality of each work, but the dialogues created. Whether it is the juxtaposition of Paul Cézanne’s exquisite Portrait of Madame Cézanne with the equally radical cropping of Henri Matisse’s Le Bras, or the broader narrative tracing key movements of the early 20th century, such as the rise of Expressionism and Abstraction. Assembled over many decades, the works offered stand as a testament to a lifetime of scholarship, passion, and commitment to the arts.”

Many of the works going under the hammer have rarely been seen in public since an extensive exhibition of the Weinberg’s collection – “From El Greco to Mondrian” – which toured four major European museums from 1996 to 1997.

The paintings will be shown to the public in Sotheby’s New York on May 2.