2023-06-01 18:10:18
Sir Peter Ustinov. Allan Warren/Sotheby’s
PORTRAIT – Nearly twenty years after the death of the actor, Sotheby’s puts on sale, on July 6, in Paris, then online, the inheritance of his four children. Cinema and theater memorabilia, works of his famous Russian family and modern art.
Sacred temperament than that of Peter Ustinov! We know the Oscar-winning actor, the man of the theatre, the film producer, the screenwriter or even the storyteller who speaks five languages, but not the collector who fed his passion for art, as heir to a cosmopolitan family bathed in the environment forever. By his multicultural origins, this son of a Russian baron – a pilot who became a German and British spy! – forged a European taste and an attraction for the great modern French masters.
His mother was none other than Nadejda Leontievna, known as Nadia, a descendant of the Ethiopian royal family and niece of Alexandre Benois, a famous French painter and decorator who emigrated to Russia. He was stage director of the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg created by his father Nicolas Benois, Ustinov’s great-grandfather.
Read alsoThe lavish taste of the Rothschilds at auction
After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, her hometown, Nadia began as a decorator for the Ballets Russes…
This article is for subscribers only. You have 88% left to discover.
Want to read more?
Unlock all items immediately.
Already subscribed? Login
#life #collection #auction