BLUES NIGHT: Bespoke furniture, fine art and personal objects from the blue-hued London home of the late interior designer David Collins fetched a total of $3,115,573 at auction at Christie’s in London on Tuesday evening. The designer, who died in 2013, lived in a sprawling one-bedroom flat in southwest London, and filled it with lush furniture — silk velvet sofas, cushions and satin-covered chairs — and art, including moody portraits and set designs by Christian Bérard, gilt bronze objects by Line Vautrin, and Primavera glazed ceramic vases. Top lots included a work by Wolfgang Tillmans, Freischwimmer, which fetched $138,227; a Bérard painting, “Acrobate Au Repos,” for $109,463; and a dining table attributed to Jules Wabbes for $71,910.
The pickings were — not surprisingly — rich from the decorator famous for his dramatic flair and passion for texture and color — and for blue in particular. Among the nearly 200 objects that went on sale were portraits of Collins’ friend Madonna — one of them by Steven Klein from the singer’s “Re-Invention Tour” — and the another by an unknown photographer of the singer on the set of “Evita.”