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"Brooke Astor's Collection of Animal Art at Auction\nBrooke Astor's collection of animal-themed art is a highlight of Sotheby's auction\nLOT 82\n\nMade of carved ivory and spattered with rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones, this four-and-a-half-inch-long Indian elephant figurine was retailed by Van Cleef &amp;amp; Arpels and is contained within a gold-mounted vitrine (not shown). Estimate: $6,000\u2013$8,000.\nLOT 146\n\nThough Astor preferred dachshunds to all other dogs\u2014hers were named Boysie, Girlsie, Benny, Judy Montagu, and Frederick the Great\u2014few if any show up in her collections. Pugs, however, are well represented. Here are three of the wrinkly toy dogs, two seated on flowered bases and wearing collars adorned with golden bells; measuring just over six inches tall, they date from around 1745 and were modeled by Meissen sculptors Johann Joachim K\u00E4ndler and Peter Reinicke. The third is a Continental seated pug, sans base but with a similar collar. Estimate: $8,000\u2013$12,000.\nLOT 61\n\nBrooke Astor owned several statuettes by Herbert Haseltine (1877\u20131962), an American artist best known for his 1948 bronze of the racehorse Man O' War. Dated 1956 and entitled Middle-White Sow: Wharfedale Royal Lady,this four-and-a-half-inch-tall gilt-bronze statuette is cast from a celebrated series of British champion domestic animals that Haseltine sculpted in the '20s. The actual pig\u2014described as a \"big-substanced sow with great quarters\" in her heyday\u2014won several awards for her owner, Leopold C. Paget, of Middlethorpe Hall in Yorkshire, England. Estimate: $10,000\u2013$15,000.\nLOT 98\n\nClutching an open vessel, this white porcelain monkey may have been the ceramic simian that Astor called her \"begging monkey\" in a 1968 profile in The New York Times. Fifteen inches tall, it was made in the 19th century by Samson, Edm\u00E9 &amp;amp; Cie, a French ceramics firm, and was likely inspired by the works of 18th-century Meissen designers Johann Gottlieb Kirchner and Johann Joachim K\u00E4ndler. Estimate: $1,500\u2013$2,500.\nLOT 132\n\nA 1734 work on paper by French artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686\u20131755) depicts a scene from \"The Daughters of Minyas,\" a story about three young women turned into bats that is part of The Fables of La Fontaine.Estimate: $15,000\u2013$20,000.\nLOT 239\n\nVictorian artist Sir Edwin Landseer (1802\u201373) sketched this chalk-on-paper study of a lion's head. Previous owners include the celebrated American public-relations guru Benjamin Sonnenberg (1901\u201378) and British writer Sir Hugh Walpole (1884\u20131941). Estimate: $3,000\u2013$5,000.\nLOT 458\n\nSculpted around 1750 by K\u00E4ndler, this pair of horse-and-groom porcelain groups are set on Louis XVI\u2013style ormolu bases ornamented with floral swags. Estimate: $20,000\u2013$30,000.\nLOT 495\n\nAstor spent three of her childhood years living in China, where her father, a future commandant of the Marine Corps, was stationed at the American legation in Peking. That exotic sojourn intoxicated the former Roberta Brooke Russell for life, and she eventually amassed a wide assortment of antique and modern Asian objects. Arguably the finest was an 18th-century Chinese clock in the form of a lion bearing an octagonal timepiece on its blanketed back; including the pedestal, it is 12.6 inches tall and 15 inches wide. The gilt-bronze body is studded with hard stones such as turquoise and lapis lazuli. Included in the lot is a small coach watch. Estimate: $180,000\u2013$220,000.\nLOT 584\n\nAmong Astor's assortment of holloware is a French earthenware tureen depicting a hen keeping a watchful eye on her chicks. The lot includes two other tureens, one in the form of a lamb and the other shaped like a duck. Estimate: $2,500\u2013$3,000.\nLOT 675\n\nSpaniels, fowl, butterflies, and cats decorate this Victorian needlepoint carpet, about 7 by 10 feet, from Astor's house in Westchester County, New York. (Known as Holly Hill, the 13-bedroom mansion was a work of the blue-chip American architecture firm Delano &amp;amp; Aldrich; it was built in 1928 and purchased by Astor in 1964.) Estimate: $3,000\u2013$5,000.\nLOT 838\n\nOne of the stars of Astor's jewel box is a 1968 Van Cleef &amp;amp; Arpels brooch that was crafted in the image of a lion reclining on a branch. The big cat's golden mane and fur are simulated by eight carats of yellow diamonds. His eyes are rubies, his nose is enamel, and the branch is a piece of coral. Better still, the lion is articulated; the tail and two of his legs gently sway with the movements of the wearer. Estimate: $20,000\u2013$30,000.\nLOT 205\n\nAstor's tableware included a late-19th-century partial service by Samson, Edm\u00E9 &amp;amp; Cie comprising 38 dinner plates and 23 salad plates. Each hand-painted dish features a central image of exotic birds surrounded by cartouches framing other examples of wildlife, among them rabbits, dogs, squirrels, tigers, foxes, and monkeys. Estimate: $400\u2013$600."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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