Art collector Ty Scheumann loved horses and old masters

It is exceptional: a woman who collects Dutch old masters. Baukje Coenen,specialist in seventeenth-century painting at Sotheby’s in Amsterdam, cannoteasily recall another example. “Ty Scheumann was a particularly tough lady,”says Coenen about the American collector. Early next year, Sotheby’s willauction its collection in New York, which mainly consists of paintings made inAmsterdam.

That the auction house proposed a preview of the so-called _single owner sale_at a historic location in Amsterdam was one of the reasons for the Scheumannheirs to award the sale to Sotheby’s, says Coenen. For security reasons, theauction house does not want to be published in the newspaper where the privatepreview is being held. From Thursday to Sunday, the Scheumann collection canthen be viewed by appointment at the Sotheby’s office in the capital.

Ty Scheumann, art collector and horse breeder. Photo Sotheby’s

Theiline “Ty” Scheumann died in December at age 90 in her hometown ofBellevue, Washington. She left a still life with oysters by Willem Claesz.Heda at the Seattle Art Museum, an institution in her hometown for which shedid board work. Twelve other works from her collection – still lifes andforest, city and seascapes by well-known old masters such as Aert van derNeer, Frans van Mieris and Jacob van Ruisdael – will be presented on January26 in New York as The Ty Scheumann Collection be auctioned. The auctionhouse estimates the proceeds at at least eight million euros.

trucks

Ty Scheumann came from a good family. Her grandfather William Pigott founded atrucking company in Seattle in 1905 which, under the leadership of her fatherPaul, grew into multinational Paccar, one of the largest manufacturers ofheavy trucks in the world – the Dutch DAF is one of the company’s brands. Herstepfather John McCone was director of the CIA’s foreign security serviceduring the Cold War in the early 1960s.

Ty Scheumann himself also stood her ground, according to the obituaries thatappeared in American media at the beginning of this year. She had fivechildren with her first husband, who died young. She loved the outdoors: sheenjoyed hunting and fishing, played tennis and golf, rode horses, had apilot’s license and, at the age of 69, was still crossing the North Atlanticby sailboat. She also kept many pets, including the hippo Gertrude.

Frans van Mieris the Elder, A young woman seals a letter, 1667 PhotosSotheby’s

In the equestrian world Ty Scheumann was known as a breeder and trader. Shefounded the Grousemont Farms stud. There she bred several racehorses ofinternational caliber that sometimes changed hands for millions of dollars.Her most famous racehorse, Noble Nashua, won several major American races andwas sold to a syndicate of breeders for $11 million in 1981.

The collection of Dutch old masters belonging to friends of her parents, Edand Hannah Carter (bequeathed to the LACMA in Los Angeles in 2009), inspiredTy Scheumann to start collecting herself. Baukje Coenen: „Scheumann onlywanted Dutch old masters of the highest quality. An increasingly complicatedtask, because those paintings are coming onto the market less and less andoften go to museums.”

Top piece from the Scheumann collection is a genre painting by Frans vanMieris the Elder, a small A4 panel completed around 1667 of a young woman whowants to seal a letter with a touch-up pen. Van Mieris was a fine painter whowanted to represent reality as accurately as possible. He did so in a detailedstyle, reportedly sometimes using brushes with only one hair. The portrait ofthe young woman has a target price of 1.5 to 2 million euros.

forest landscape

Five other paintings received target prices of around a million fromSotheby’s. A small forest landscape by Jacob van Ruisdael, a forest view byAert van der Neer and an Amsterdam canal by Jan van der Heyden should eachyield 1 to 1.5 million. A painting with the whaler Prince Willem by theRotterdam maritime painter Lieve Verschuier and a small, but fine seascape byWillem van de Velde the Younger were both estimated at 800,000 to 1.2 million.

In addition to old masters and horses, Ty Scheumann was passionate aboutAmerican football. According to the Seattle Times On the weekend before herdeath, she was still watching the television coverage of one of her favoriteteams, the Seattle Seahawks. They lost 20-10 to the Los Angeles Rams.

The Ty Scheumann Collection can be viewed from Thurs to Sun by appointmentat the Sotheby’s auction house in Amsterdam. Info: amsterdam@sothebys.com and