Bidding at the first evening of Christie’s Rothschild auction series in New York was befitting of the gilded wares on offer, as nearly every lot soared past its presale estimate and one was hammered down for a seven-figure sum ten times its high estimate.

The four-part sale began yesterday (October 11) with Rothschild Masterpieces. The series—with offerings spanning Old Master paintings and European furniture to Italian Renaissance maiolica and 17th-century jewelry—marks the first auction dedicated to the European banking dynasty on North American shores.

The first evening sale in New York saw a total haul in excess of $43 million, with a 95 percent sell-through rate. The highest-priced item was Gerrit Dou’s A young woman holding a hare with a boy at a window (ca.1653–57), fetching just over $7 million (including fees), blowing past its presale estimate of $3 million–$5 million. Although the artist trained with Rembrandt as a young man, over time he deviated from the Dutch Master’s subject matter and began painting people going about their daily tasks.

​​A pair of fauteuils (armchairs), ca. 1770–71, came in second with a realized price of $6.2 million (estimate: $600,000–$1 million). They belonged to the famed Madame du Barry, King Louis XV’s last mistress, who kept them in her château de Louveciennes. A rare survival of the French Revolution, they later adorned Alphonse and Leonora de Rothschild’s hôtel particulier in Paris. The couple, part of the family’s French branch, inherited the mansion in 1868 and filled it with paintings, furniture, and decorative arts.

The Rothschild family rose to prominence after Mayer Amschel Rothschild established a banking business in 1760s Frankfurt. The enterprise evolved into an international dynasty after his five sons set up practices throughout Europe. The Rothschilds had not only a head for banking, but a passion for collecting. So opulent were their homes that the term “goût Rothschild,” or “Rothschild taste,” eventually entered the lexicon.

Other lots notched even larger margins over their presale estimates. A Roman cameo portrait of the Emperor Claudius, which had previously been sold by Christie’s in the 19th century, fetched $2.1 million—more than 10 times its low estimate. Sculpted in three layers of sardonyx, the imperial cameo was made ca. 41–54 C.E., although it was mounted in a 16th-century gold setting and bears a drop-shaped pearl that was likely added in the late 19th or early 20th century.

A silver-gilt nautilus cup—a goblet with the Greek goddess Nike (victory) riding an open-jawed sea monster—yielded just over $1.5 million, smashing its $100,000–$150,000 estimate. Attributed to Mark of Cornelis Jansz van der Burch of Delft, the Netherlands, its date of 1607 places it just after the establishment of the Dutch East India Company. The comany’s dominance of the spice trade gave it a de facto monopoly over nautilus shells, which were almost exclusively imported through Amsterdam and resold through Dutch traders.

The Rothschild sales continue with additional live auctions on October 12 and 13, and an online auction—where bidding starts as low as $100—from October 3 to 17.

If you were going to try to summarize the zeitgeist based on the offerings along the aisles at Frieze London (October 11–15), which opened its 20th anniversary edition to VIPs yesterday, the evidence might surprise you: it really seems like everything is coming up roses.

With dealers on their back foot as jitters continue to ripple about the state of the art business, the gambit this year was to appeal to our world-weary eyes with a colorful dose of whimsy. Floral art, delicate pastoral scenes, and playfully surrealistic nature that was more storybook than sci-fi were seemingly on every corner of the fair. While some might write it off as low-hanging fruit, lest one forget that art is supposed to be, among other things, a balm for the times.

The most sizeable iteration of this new flare for botanics was to be found, perhaps unsurprisingly, at Gagosian, where British art star Damien Hirst continues to try his hand at painting, this time in a new series called “The Secret Gardens Paintings” (2023)—the maximalist canvases have traded cherry trees for fields of wild flowers at an intimately close range, atop of which he layered his signature paint splotches.

At Casey Kaplan, Kevin Beasley’s solo presentation struck a similar tone, with new works that merged flora and domestic elements. A series of four Garden Windows depict imagined landscapes in a surreal exterior world that could have been drawn from a fairytale. Just in front, a custom-built grandfather clock with a delicate hand-painted face still intact has been reworked with resin and other elements. The piece’s title, On Time: For Benjamin Banneker and Peter Hill an English Movement (2023), layers in historical heft with its nod to the Black scientist and clockmaker.

François Ghebaly’s group presentation was seamlessly integrated to create a fantastical scene, with works by Farah Al Qasimi, Marius Bercea, Max Hooper Schneider, Patricia Iglesias Peco, and Jessie Makinson. At Clearing, Marguerite Humeau’s wind-activated instruments have fanciful root structures and a trio of color-filled, cloudlike wall pieces have divinatory-like symbols etched onto them.

And Pilar Corrias, who has just expanded in London with a new flagship in Mayfair, had a showstopper booth featuring German artist Sophie von Hellermann that was uplifting and as dreamy as can be. Wisps of paint strokes completely covered the carpets and walls in vibrant splashes of color. The central element of the presentation, which is titled “Dreamland,” is a series of washy pastel works depicting ferris wheels, roller coasters, and carousels.

“A day spent at a seaside fun fair, in all its intensity, can feel like a whole life of dreams and desires compressed into a few hours of an afternoon,” the artist said about the new works. And, as far as this particular thread of art went, such a mood was disarmingly true of the white tent this week as well. Take a whirlwind tour around the fair.