Esmerian Property Removed from American Folk Art Museum

by Lita Solis-Cohen

A Sotheby's truck, sent to the American Folk Art Museum in New York City some weeks ago, picked up promised gifts from the collection of Ralph Esmerian. The renowned dealer in colored gemstones had over the years become the principal donor of works to the museum.

In 2001, at the time of the completion of the museum's new building at 45 West 53rd Street, Esmerian made public his intention to make the museum the steward of the 341 masterworks. They were published in an illustrated catalog, American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum. Installed at the opening of the new building, which was designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, the collection received rave reviews.

Esmerian was known for buying the best available on the market, often on credit. All went well in prosperous times, but since 2005, after Esmerian purchased Fred Leighton, a luxury jewelry store, with hundreds of millions of dollars of loans from Merrill Lynch, he has been plagued with financial woes.

Sotheby's had offered Esmerian's Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks, once a promised gift to the American Folk Art Museum, to satisfy a Sotheby's loan. When the painting failed to sell privately for $10 million by February 2008, Sotheby's put it up for auction at an American paintings sale in May 2008. It sold for a record $9,673,000 to Halsey Minor, but Minor failed to pay for it. He alleged that Sotheby's had not revealed its financial interest in the work in the catalog; a lawsuit is ongoing. With interest on Esmerian's loan mounting because Minor's bill remains unpaid, Sotheby's took possession of what some have said is probably $20 million worth of Esmerian's promised gifts to the American Folk Art Museum. Sotheby's hopes to sell them in private treaty sales.

Nancy Druckman, Sotheby's folk art specialist, said she cannot reveal what works are on offer, nor does she have an auction planned. She said there are Americana sales scheduled for October 1 and for January 2010.

"Yes, I know Sotheby's took perhaps ten things," said Esmerian when reached by phone. "I heard they sold the Tin Man [American Radiance, #328, p. 363] for more than a million dollars. If the Peaceable Kingdom had sold, it would still be at the museum. I believe in the institution in New York City. I believe in the material, and now we are stuck in the mud," he said. "I feel very sorry about it. The museum is a fragile institution. They don't need this kind of thing."

Esmerian said he hoped there would not be an auction and that the money could be raised by private treaty sales. He seemed frustrated that the museum board did not take any action. "They had a couple of years to figure this out," he said.

"Why didn't the board anticipate this?" asked Woodbury, Connecticut, dealer David Schorsch, who with his mother, Peggy, had sold many of the objects to Esmerian. "They could have drawn the line, picked twenty key objects, and offered the rest back to Ralph to sell to erase his Sotheby's loan. They could have done this quietly through the trade, and no one would have known. This situation is sad beyond belief. The collection is so good, if it were a sale, it would make the [Nina Fletcher and Bertram] Little sale look like kindergarten."

Maria Ann Conelli, executive director of the American Folk Art Museum, said she knows that promised gifts are tantamount to loans and that she is aware of Esmerian's passionate concern for the future of the museum. "Ralph gave us nearly a hundred works and deeds more of his promised gifts to us each year. There was no reason to think that the gifts would not be completed during Ralph's lifetime, certainly at his death."

She said among the masterworks that are permanent gifts to the museum are the Centaur weathervane; the Fame weathervane; the Flora sculpture; the Aurora watercolor on silk; the "Laedy Waschington" fraktur; the Johannes Spitler tall-case clock; the Bell redware lion; the sgraffito plate with a double eagle; the covered redware jar with star decoration; the chair painted with Ithaca Falls; The Residence of David Twining 1785 by Hicks; the portrait of the young woman of the Folsom family, on the cover of American Radiance, by Henry Folsom; and Girl in Red Dress with Cat and Dog by Ammi Phillips.

Conelli said the museum's collection is rich thanks to Esmerian and to many other donors, and the collection rotates. "When something is not on view, it is probably resting," she said.

Conelli would not confirm that the Statue of Liberty weathervane, now replaced with a butterfly, was at Sotheby's for sale. The Statue of Liberty vane, made by J.L. Mott Iron Works in New York after 1886, was sold at the Thomas G. Rizzo sale at Sotheby Parke Bernet in April 1982 for $82,500, then the record price for a weathervane.

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