The private collection of Hollywood icons Kathryn and Bing Crosby sold at Sotheby's for $6.7 million on December 18. The white-glove auction, held at Sotheby's new Breuer Building location on Manhattan's Upper East Side, surpassed its pre-sale high estimate of $6.3 million, with two-thirds of the lots exceeding their high estimates. The nearly 200-lot sale featured fine art, furnishings, and collectibles, with the top lot being Alfred James Munnings' painting *On the Moors* (1914), which sold for $1.2 million. Other highlights included works by Charles Marion Russell, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Corot, as well as nearly 50 lots of Fabergé items that achieved $2 million in sales.
This auction matters because it demonstrates the enduring market demand for celebrity collections that combine connoisseurship with storytelling, as noted by Sotheby's head of decorative arts Helen Culver-Smith. The sale also marked a successful conclusion to Sotheby's first season at the Breuer Building, with the auction house reporting total sales of $7 billion for the year, up 17 percent on 2024. The results underscore how collectors value the personal taste and lifestyle of iconic figures like the Crosbys, with the bestselling lots reflecting their passion for horses, the outdoors, and decorative arts rather than Bing Crosby's entertainment career.