.jpg)
When Mica Ertegun passed away in December 2023, at the age of 97, the New York–based AD100 Hall of Fame designer left behind a legacy of worldly, thoughtfully edited interiors. So it’s not surprising that her own Upper East Side town house, Southampton compound, Paris pied-à-terre, and Bodrum villa brimmed with beguiling treasures. For more than 50 years she amassed eclectic artworks and design objects that decorated her homes, and now they are up for grabs as part of Mica: The Collection of Mica Ertegun, a series of live and online sales at Christie’s auction houses in New York and Paris from November 19 through December 18.
“She had peerless style, sophistication, subtlety, and deep appreciation for culture and the humanities,” says Max Carter, vice chairman of 20th and 21st century art at Christie’s. Indeed, Ertegun’s designs reveal a flair for restrained elegance, confidently balancing soft lines, natural fabrics, and mellow hues with carefully selected pieces imbued with stories from different eras and cultures.
Born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1926 as Ioana Maria Banu, the illustrious Ertegun made New York her home in the 1960s when she married Ahmet Ertegun, the late cofounder of Atlantic Records. Sparked by an ardor for antiques, she studied at the New York School of Interior Design before launching the firm MAC II in 1967 with her friend, the editor and tastemaker Chessy Rayner.
One of their early commissions was transforming a floor of Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship location, where Bill Blass, Pierre Cardin, and other of-the-moment designers showcased their wares. Glamorous homes for the social set—both in the city and farther afield—followed. After Rayner’s death in 1998, Ertegun pressed on with solo design projects, including Walmart heiress Alice Walton’s Park Avenue duplex condo.
Like Ertegun’s vast oeuvre, the Christie’s collection “has sweep,” as Carter puts it, spanning the De Stijl, Surrealism, and Color-Field movements. Vivid paintings by David Hockney, Joan Miró, and Ed Rauscha, for example, mingle with an industrial David Smith sculpture and a glamorous photograph Andy Warhol snapped of Ertegun. There’s also a 19th-century German mahogany secretaire and pair of breezy mid-20th-century bronze palm trees attributed to Maison Jansen that once graced Ertegun’s New York living room, as well as an Ingrid Donat chaise longue that held court in the guest room.
The most coveted of items is sure to be one of René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières nocturnal landscape paintings, estimated at upwards of $95 million. “It is the largest, the most finely painted, the most exquisitely preserved” of Magritte’s series, points out Carter. “It exhausts superlatives. But every object in the collection is just so and has its own special story,” like the Henry Moore sculpture, chosen by Moore specifically for The International Surrealist Exhibition held in London in 1936.
Given that her husband was a music mogul who ignited the careers of such talents as Aretha Franklin and Led Zeppelin, Ertegun often designed residences for musicians—Carly Simon and Keith Richards among them. This glittering ambience suffused the Erteguns’ personal lives too. They were dinner party fixtures, hobnobbing with luminaries like Oscar de la Renta and Henry Kissinger. But beyond the glitz they were philanthropists, and following Ahmet’s death in 2006, his wife carried on with an atrium for Jazz at Lincoln Center, restoration efforts at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and $41 million toward humanities scholarships at the University of Oxford. It is fitting, then, that a significant portion of proceeds from the sales will go toward charitable initiatives.
The AD archive offers a glimpse into Ertegun’s multifaceted persona through her stunning yet no-nonsense spaces, which she guided with an uncompromising design philosophy. Looking for inspiration for your auction hunting? Try diving into these six timeless tales from our past editions.
The Design Legacy of Mica Ertegun
Mica Ertegun: Fine-Tuning an Enduring Arrangement in Manhattan
Featured September 1997
“Mysteriously perfect” are the two words that writer Annette Tapert used to describe Ertegun, building upon the late socialite Slim Keith’s description of the designer as the only woman she knew who could wear linen without wrinkling it. “Her hair is never mussed, her manners are impeccable, and the residences she designs with Chessy Rayner, her partner in MAC II, look as if they never have to be refreshed,” Tapert continued in AD’s 1997 coverage. Attesting to this timelessness is the New York town house where Ertegun resided with her husband for decades. She reimagined it from a narrow brownstone into a spacious loft-like setting with Regency antiques, Biedermeier sofas, and 18th-century German dining chairs with serpents carved on the backs that seemed to be in perpetual dialogue. “Sometimes I’ll look at one of my tables and think, There are too many things, I have to clean up,” Ertegun shared. “That’s difficult because I like everything that’s there. But you have to be very strict with yourself. My motto: Only upgrade. If you had the same taste forever, it would be very boring.”
.jpeg)
Connecticut Collaboration: Disciplined Elegance Defines a Greenwich Colonial
Featured October 2001
Other than the salvaged boiserie in the library, nothing stayed the same in the 1920s Greenwich, Connecticut, estate that Ertegun overhauled for a soon-to-be-married couple. They were dreaming of an “informal but civilized family life,” as she described it, “in a sophisticated but airy country place without clutter or affectation, furnished with an eclectic mix of comfortable contemporary pieces and exceptional antiques.” Combining an 18th-century Scandinavian chandelier and round Irish mahogany table in the dining room and wrapping the bar’s Biedermeier walnut chairs in oyster gray silk velvet underscored Ertegun’s knack for deftly mingling disparate elements.
.jpeg)
The Professionals: Mica Ertegun
Featured August 2002
As much as Ertegun thrived on the thrill of discovery, namely poring over the morning truckloads of antiques delivered to an old Paris airport, she was wary of those very objects making a room, in her words, “thinged over.” Less was always more in an Ertegun environment: “It’s always wonderful to have beautiful things, but they look better in a cleaner space than they do when they’re covered with objects and chintzes. I try to make things comfortable and clean-looking and cheerful.” This was especially true in her own home, the ultimate bastion of creative freedom. “You can’t totally change the way someone lives. Everybody has different needs,” she explained. “Only once did I do an apartment for a bachelor who told me, ‘Just do it, and then I’ll move in.’ But that only works until the new girlfriend comes and doesn’t like it.”
.jpeg)
Reinterpreting the Classics: An Idyll in the Dominican Republic Draws on Poetic Precedents
Featured August 2004
Working with the late architect Jaquelin T. Robertson of Cooper, Robertson & Partners, Ertegun enlivened the 19,000-square-foot Casa Campo in the Dominican Republic with antiques sourced from London and upholstered furniture made in New York. But she was equally inspired by the island’s beauty, so she brought in forged-metal lanterns and mahogany tables and chairs from local craftspeople, too, tying all these features together with blue-and-white porcelain vessels, red stripes, and cotton-and-raffia carpets that evoked the breezy tropics.
.jpeg)
On the Bosporus: With Echoes of Ottoman Exoticism, A Waterfront Yali Rises Again in Istanbul
Featured August 2005
On the Asian side of the Bospurus in Istanbul, a New York family demolished a derelict Ottoman-era wooden villa and built one anew. To ensure it exuded a traditional Turkish atmosphere, they turned to Ertegun, who had spent much time in the country thanks to her husband’s roots there, and filled the small home with goods from Istanbul’s iconic Grand Bazaar. Whether it was the stenciled wall frieze, the chandelier that once hung in a mosque, or the striped bed skirt repurposed from 18th-century Turkish silk fragments, the house was decidedly emblematic of Istanbul.
.jpeg)
Revision on Park Avenue: Refining the Familiar for Author Barbara Goldsmith
Featured December 2006
Barbara Goldsmith, the late author and historian, knew it was time to revamp her top-floor Park Avenue apartment and amplify the abundant light on all sides. But she wanted it to express her personality, to embrace her blue-chip art collection and heaps of books hidden away in storage. This was no problem for Ertegun, who melded finds like a versatile Art Deco table from a Paris flea market with some of Goldsmith’s standout heirlooms, including an Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann bed and René Cresson fauteuils. “We do simple things without being minimalist,” declared Ertegun. “As long as you have good pieces, you can mix anything. But it all has to be considered within a global view.”
