Christie’s is beginning a multi-sale programme for works from the Marlene and Spencer Hays collection, assembled over decades and closely linked to the Musée d’Orsay.
Christie’s is beginning a multi-sale programme for works from the collection of Marlene and Spencer Hays, the American collectors whose long relationship with French art ultimately led to a major pledge to the Musée d’Orsay. The collection was built over decades and grew to almost 600 works, with particular depth in nineteenth- and twentieth-century French art and the Nabis.
The pieces being offered are estimated collectively at $6 million to $9 million and will appear across auctions in Paris and New York from October 2026 into 2027. For private collectors, the dispersal is significant because it shows how a collection can simultaneously support family ownership, institutional philanthropy and the art market without reducing decades of connoisseurship to one evening sale.
The Hayses collected by agreement rather than investment formula
Christie’s records one simple rule behind the collection: both Marlene and Spencer had to love a work and be willing to live with it every day. They began collecting during the 1970s, eventually forming an exceptional group around artists including Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton.
That principle offers a useful counterpoint to purely financial collecting. Ultra-high-net-worth buyers may have access to sophisticated market analysis, but the strongest private collections often develop a recognisable personality because acquisitions are filtered through sustained taste rather than assembled simply to match an index of famous names.
The residences became part of the collecting story
The Hayses maintained a Paris apartment on Rue de Bourgogne and a New York home with celebrated interiors originally designed by Renzo Mongiardino. Art, furniture and decorative objects were installed as part of lived spaces rather than separated into a white-cube private museum.
That approach is relevant to superyacht owners who integrate collections into several residences and onboard environments. The challenge is not only acquiring important objects, but allowing them to coexist with architecture, furniture, light and daily life while preserving the conditions needed for long-term conservation.
Philanthropy became a central part of the collection’s legacy
The Hayses pledged hundreds of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century works to the Musée d’Orsay, a commitment Christie’s describes as leading to the largest foreign gift of art in the museum’s history. Their support turned private collecting into a form of cultural stewardship that will outlive the original owners.
For family offices thinking about succession, this is one of the most consequential questions a collection eventually raises. Heirs may not want to preserve every object together, and a structured mixture of museum gifts, family retention and market sales can protect the original collecting purpose more effectively than leaving those decisions until after a transition.
The offered works range from Degas to Monet and design
Highlights include Edgar Degas’ Deux femmes appuyées à une barrière, estimated at €1.2 million to €1.8 million, and works by Vuillard, Ranson and Monet. Furniture, sketchbooks and design pieces from the Paris and New York apartments are also included, broadening the sale beyond paintings alone.
That range reflects the way major collectors often think about entire environments rather than categories. A drawing, chandelier or piece of furniture may carry less headline value than a painting, yet it can be essential to understanding the rooms, relationships and personal history that made the collection coherent.
A collection of this scale requires an exit strategy as careful as its acquisition
Christie’s is spreading the material across six or more auctions, beginning in Paris and continuing through New York and later Classic Week sales. The structure allows specialists and buyers to encounter each category in the market where it is most likely to receive focused attention.
For ultra-high-net-worth collectors, the lesson is that stewardship includes planning how a collection eventually changes hands. Provenance files, valuations, conservation records, charitable intentions and family preferences all need to be organised long before a sale is announced. The Hays collection demonstrates how thoughtful planning can preserve a collector’s identity even as individual works begin new ownership stories.
Source
Christie's