Art News & Art Auction Alert: The Connoisseur Collection of Renaissance Ivory Micropictures Once Owned by European and Russian Royalty to Go On Auction December 5th, 2002

Only 100 Renaissance "Mircopictures" are known to exist in the entire world -- Upcoming art auction of The Connoisseur Collection will offer 29 of these 100 objets. Upcoming auction is an art enthusiast's and art collectors opportunity that may not be equalled again in this lifetime.

***For Immediate Release in America***

Rare Renaissance/Rococo-era Micropicture Collection, The Connoisseur Collection,"
To be Auctioned by Nagel Auctions in Stuttgart, Germany, on December 5th

- Sculpted 'Micro-Miracles of Fine Art Seen Through a Magnifying Glass -

(New York, November 15, 2002) The Connoisseur Collection, the worlds largest collection of 18th century sculpted ivory micropictures, will be auctioned by Nagel Auctions in Stuttgart, Germany, on December 5, 2002. Of the one-hundred (100) ivory micropictures known to exist in the world, twenty-nine (29) are contained in this rare collection, which is owned by a family close to the British royal family.

   The best known micropicture in The Connoisseur Collection is the three-paneled River Landscape" piece called the Maria Theresa Broach," which took three years to sculpt and which was valued in 1998 at US$ 2 million. The Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa, who owned this broach, gave it to her personal physician as a gift. He later sold it in 1779 for the price of a small castle" to the family that currently owns The Connoisseur Collection.

   The auction of The Connoisseur Collection will offer the public access to rarities of fine art that were once limited to the personal collections of European and Russian Royalty. Until today, most micropictures were safeguarded, sometimes in museums, but more often in private collections and out of public view.

   Two hundred years ago, European and Russian Royalty commissioned court artists to sculpt works that only they, the Royalty, could possibly afford as cabinet collections or as personal jewelry. Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Theresa, Russian Czarina Catherine the Great, the King of Sardinia and King George III of England owned such pieces, which could only be sculpted by the finest artists of the era, using precision instruments made of the hard, Moorish sword-blade steel of Toledo, Spain. Some micropictures were sculpted so finely (0.01 mm) that their details rival the thickness of a human hair (0.04 mm).

   The Connoisseur Collection is comprised of 27 objects with 29 micro- pictures, nearly one-third of all 100 ivory micropictures known to exist in the entire world. The Connoisseur Collection is currently on view until December 5, 2002, when it will be auctioned by Nagel Auctions in Stuttgart, Germany.

See complete collection at

E-mail Nagel Auctions at

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US Media Contact:   
Daniel Kennedy / Communications Services
(212) 580-3454 or Dkennedyco@aol.com

Editorial and Photo Notes:

1)
For publication and for your reference: A complete Virtual Exhibition" AND extensive, additional background and catalog information can be found at

2)
Downloadable, High-Res reproduction-quality images of the entire collection, for your editorial use only and for reproduction, can be found at:

3) Chromes available upon request from
Dkennedyco@aol.com

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