{"id":6161,"date":"2014-11-29T13:19:25","date_gmt":"2014-11-29T20:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=6161"},"modified":"2014-12-01T13:31:38","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T20:31:38","slug":"lessons-from-bunny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2014\/11\/29\/lessons-from-bunny\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons From Bunny"},"content":{"rendered":"

from The New York Observer<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

10 Things We Learned From Bunny Mellon\u2019s Monster Estate Sale<\/h1>\n

Don\u2019t crumple the Rothko, don’t refinish the antiques, and act fast<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Brianna McGurran<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Untitled<\/a><\/p>\n

Think of it as a master class in estate\u00a0<\/b>planning. Earlier this month, Sotheby\u2019s\u00a0sold all\u00a043 pieces\u00a0on offer from Bunny Mellon\u2019s\u00a0art\u00a0collection\u2014Rothko to Picasso to Diebenkorn\u2014at its\u00a0much-heralded \u201cProperty from the Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon: Masterworks.\u201d\u00a0The estate sale brought in\u00a0$158.7 million, about $40 million more than the high pre-sale estimate. Last week, jewelry and furniture brought\u00a0 <\/span>in $59.3 million more.<\/p>\n

Not all auctions\u00a0go quite as well. So we talked to art lawyers and estate planners across the country to find out what Mrs. Mellon, heiress to a Listerine fortune and wife of banker Paul Mellon, did right when it came to planning for posterity. Here are some tips for\u00a0making sure\u00a0your estate\u00a0fetches what it\u00a0deserves, at the inevitable world-class auction of your own belongings.<\/p>\n

1. Have flawless\u00a0taste\u2014and clear title.<\/b><\/p>\n

Bunny Mellon was known for her discerning eye, and\u00a0her art collection came to include pieces by everyone from 17th century Dutch master\u00a0Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder\u00a0to\u00a0Georgia O\u2019Keeffe and Edward Hopper, which clearly increased the value.<\/p>\n

But Mellon was also careful to keep all her acquisitions on the up-and-up, which solidified\u00a0that value.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to make sure that the provenance [a piece\u2019s history of ownership and exhibition] on the artworks you\u2019re selling is clear and clean,\u201d said Herbert Nass, a New York\u00a0trusts and estates attorney and author of\u00a0Wills of the Rich and Famous<\/i>. \u201cThe last thing you want is\u00a0for there to be some kind of dispute\u201d after your passing over the ownership of the piece.<\/p>\n

[ click to continue reading at the Observer<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from The New York Observer 10 Things We Learned From Bunny Mellon\u2019s Monster Estate Sale Don\u2019t crumple the Rothko, don’t refinish the antiques, and act fast By Brianna McGurran Think of it as a master class in estate\u00a0planning. Earlier this month, Sotheby\u2019s\u00a0sold all\u00a043 pieces\u00a0on offer from Bunny Mellon\u2019s\u00a0art\u00a0collection\u2014Rothko to Picasso to Diebenkorn\u2014at its\u00a0much-heralded \u201cProperty from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}