Hammershøi leads 12 million Loeb collection, works up to 5 million at Phillips 2026 auctions

In the spring of 2026 Phillips will devote itsentire auction season between London and New York to the collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. one of the most significant private collections of Danish art ever assembled. The project will feature some 150 works, which will be offered in modern and contemporary art sales in March and May, with a total estimate exceeding $12 million. This is a body of work that, in breadth and quality, is considered the most important in the world outside Danish museum institutions.

The centerpiece of the offering is a select group of masterpieces by Vilhelm Hammershøi, a pivotal artist in the collection. Prominent among them is Interior of the Courtyard at Strandgade 30, a work that will be one of the main lots in the auction series. The painting, with an estimate between $3 million and $5 million, depicts a female figure facing a window looking out onto an interior courtyard, in a composition that combines the everyday dimension with a formal synthesis of marked modernity. The work was previously featured by Phillips in the 2024 exhibition Stillness: Hammershøi and American Minimalism, and continues to be considered a landmark in the artist’s modern reading, more than a century after it was made. The reference to Interior of the Courtyard at Strandgade 30 takes on additional value in the context of the Loeb collection.

The building is located in central Copenhagen, in the same neighborhood as the Erichsen Building, and was one of the places where Hammershøi created many of his best-known works. Starting the collection’s international tour in this very area was conceived by Phillips as a direct reminder of the collection’s geographical and cultural origins, as well as the centrality of Danish art in the collector’s education. In addition to Interior of the Courtyard at Strandgade 30, the collection includes nine other works by Hammershøi, including Interior with Windsor Chair, a typical example of the interior scenes that made the artist famous, along with landscapes and portraits that give back an overall view of his career. It is precisely Interior with Windsor Chair at Strandgade 25, dated 1913, that will be offered in the May 2026 New York Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Proposals, with an estimate of $2.5 million to $3.5 million.

Alongside Hammershøi, the Loeb collection is distinguished by the presence of works by leading artists of the Danish modernist turn. These include Bertha Wegmann, represented by a scene depicting a young woman sitting in a boat, a painting that combines French-style Impressionist suggestions with a typically Scandinavian luministic rendering. Also featured are several works by Anna Ancher, including Girl Reading a Letter, a work in which the artist addresses the theme of domestic intimacy with a sensibility that, in many ways, dialogues with Hammershøi’s in her ability to capture moments of suspended everyday life.

“When I first arrived in Denmark, I spent my evenings in silence strolling the corridors of Rydhave, pondering the empty walls and thinking about the art I had grown up with,” says Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr.“Although I initially planned to fill the spaces with works of American art, I was soon drawn to the quietness and beauty of 19th-century Danish painting. It was art that I felt comfortable with and comforted by. Over time, and with the Hirschsprung Museum as my compass, this passion became a way to learn about the country, its people, and its culture. When people stand in front of these works, I hope they can sense the beauty of the people and the land that I felt when I first encountered them, and that these auctions will continue to shed light on Denmark’s extraordinary artistic heritage.”

“Ambassador Loeb’s refined eye and deep admiration for Danish culture have resulted in a collection of extraordinary depth and sensitivity,” said Jeremiah Evarts, Vice President, Americas, Senior International Specialist, Modern and Contemporary Art. "His commitment to promoting Danish art, particularly the radical works of Vilhelm Hammershøi, has helped bring global attention back to a school of painting that continues to resonate with contemporary audiences. Following the success of our 2024 exhibition, Stillness: Hammershøi and American Minimalism, we are proud to present this landmark auction series. Recent major exhibitions devoted to Scandinavian art ranging from the Metropolitan Museum in 2023 to the currently ongoing exhibition Northern Lights at the AKG Buffalo Art Museum, through future exhibitions devoted to Hammershøi at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and a major traveling exhibition planned for the United States in 2027, to the current exhibition devoted to Anna Ancher in London-all of which testify to the exceptional and urgent appeal of this cultural heritage. In this context, the arrival on the market of the Loeb Collection represents a rare opportunity to acquire examples of these masters of light. Phillips is honored to be able to act as custodian of this collection and to contribute to the evolving dialogue about Danish art and its enduring relevance."

Another relevant nucleus is devoted to P. S. Krøyer, a central figure in the Skagen group of painters, who is represented in the collection by four outstanding works. Prominent among them isSelf-Portrait, seated at an easel on the beach in Skagen, considered one of the artist’s most important works ever to appear on the market. The painting is part of a series of four self-portraits made on Skagen beach between 1897 and 1909 and is the only one still in private hands. The other three examples are held at the National History Museum at Frederiksborg Castle, the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, and the Anchers Hus in Skagen. The collection’s proposed itinerary also includes works that are less well known to the general international public but are fundamental to Danish art history. It features 19th-century landscapes by J. Th. Lundbye, interior scenes by Carl Holsøe and Christian Mourier-Petersen, as well as modernist works by L. A. Ring and Michael Ancher, which broaden the reading of the transition between tradition and modernity.

The collection was formed in the early 1980s, during Loeb’s tenure as U.S. ambassador to Denmark, between 1981 and 1983. During that period, Loeb initiated an intensive acquisition activity that led him to collect central examples of 19th- and early 20th-century Danish painting, with a focus on the protagonists of the so-called modernist turn. Over time, the nucleus expanded to cover more than two centuries of Danish art history, including works traceable to both the Golden Age and the modernist season.

Prior to the auctions, Phillips will organize an international presentation tour. A selection of works will be shown in Copenhagen on January 28 at the Erichsen Palace in an exhibition that can be visited by appointment, marking the beginning of the tour. This will be followed by stops in Gstaad, St. Moritz, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, while full pre-sale exhibitions will be held in London and New York close to the sales. John L. Loeb Jr. comes from the Lehman and Loeb families, leading figures in American financial history between the 19th and 20th centuries. During his diplomatic tenure in Denmark during the most intense years of the Cold War, he was involved in initiatives to strengthen Danish support for NATO and to promote the U.S. proposal of Option Zero for nuclear arms reduction. Parallel to his diplomatic activities, Loeb supported projects related to religious freedom and separation of church and state, such as the Loeb Visitors Center at Touro Synagogue in Newport and the Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom at George Washington University.

Hammershøi leads 12 million Loeb collection, works up to 5 million at Phillips 2026 auctions

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