Stair Welcomes Guest

Steel heiress Cornelia Guest is parting with much of the contents of her family compound in Old Westbury, N.Y. The actress, former horse-riding champion, author, accessories and clothing designer, caterer and animal rights activist has consigned a select collection of treasured pieces to be sold through Stair Galleries on Saturday, November 14.

New York socialite Cornelia Guest (left), and her parents pictured in 1952

Guest, the daughter of polo player Winston Frederick Churchill Guest and the socialite C. Z. Guest, is moving to a farm in Columbia County, N.Y., which she plans to turn into an animal sanctuary. Parting with the objects for sale, she said, “just pulls at your heart in a way that you never expect.”

With a heritage such as Guest’s, it’s not surprising to see a number of offerings related to polo and horses. Lot 237 (above) is among these, a watercolor of a mallet-wielding athlete on horseback by the Argentine painter Florencio Molina Campos. Colin Stair, the auction house’s owner, found the watercolor in a pile of prints in a Templeton barn and expects it to be one of the star lots of the sale.

Lot 104 - Louis XVI multi-colored gold box

Stair Galleries’ sale of the Property of Cornelia Guest is 320 lots strong and contains a vast array of interesting pieces from diverse range of categories including glassware, paintings, porcelain, furniture, silverware, Asian art, books and more.