Page 23 - September 20th 2021, Indian and Himalayan Art Christie's NYC

Photograph of Christian Humann with Pratapaditya and Chitra Pal at the opening of The Sensuous Immortals at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1977.

The Pan Asian Collection

The Pan Asian Collection is perhaps the most prestigious collection of was Humann’s acquisition in 1974 of a large portion of the collection of
Asian art to have been assembled in the twentieth century. At its peak in Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck, composing Indian and Himalayan stone and
the late 1970s, it was composed of over a thousand objects spanning almost metal sculptures, Mughal and Rajput paintings, manuscripts, and thangkas
two millennia, from the second century BCE to the nineteenth century and hailing from the famed Tucci collection. The exponential growth of the
from across the entire Asian continent. The collection was formed by one collection after the Heeramaneck acquisition inspired curator Dr. Pal to
individual, Christian Humann, a man remembered for his impeccable taste, form The Sensuous Immortals exhibition that started at Los Angeles County
character, and sensibility. Living between Paris and New York, Humann was Museum of Art in 1977, and subsequently traveled to Seattle Art Museum,
comfortable among all the various company he kept, from the world of New Denver Art Museum, the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, the National
York finance to the aristocracy of France, or the dealers and academics of Gallery of Ottawa, and the Toledo Museum of Art. The Sensuous Immortals
the art world. A discerning and discreet collector, Humann never bought at was undoubtedly the most important exhibition of Indian, Himalayan, and
auction; all of his pieces were acquired through personal meetings or during Southeast Asian art to have been organized in the United States at that time.
his weekly Saturday visits to New York’s art galleries. The root of Humann’s
fascination with South and Southeast Asian art remains unknown, but After Humann’s untimely death in the early eighties, renowned Asian art
his dear friendships with the former curator of Asian art at the Denver Art dealer and collector Robert Hatfield Ellsworth acquired the Pan Asian
Museum, Mary Lanius, art historian Emma C. Bunker, and the esteemed Collection, selling several works to prestigious institutions such as the
curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at Los Angeles County Museum Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Philadelphia
of Art, Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, encouraged his interests in Asian art, despite his Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among other leading
family’s more Western collecting history. Humann apparently had dreams private collections. With much of the remaining works, he produced two
of returning to France and establishing a museum of Asian art with the Pan auctions – the first at Christie’s in 1982 and the second at Sotheby’s in 1990,
Asian Collection at its core; however, his sudden death at the age of fifty-six both setting world records and garnering international acclaim. Many other
meant those dreams were never realized. works still remained in Ellsworth’s collection by the time his estate was sold
through six auctions at Christie’s New York in 2015, a groundbreaking sale
Composed of some of the finest works of Asian art available at the time, that achieved a total of $134 million and four world auction records. It is said
the Pan Asian Collection represented decades of study and expertise in the that Ellsworth sold all of the collection’s Tibetan paintings privately; very
region by the small, elite circle of scholars and intellectuals to which Humann few have ever been offered at auction. This rare Lamdre lineage painting of
belonged. Over roughly twenty-fix years, Humann amassed the collection two Sakya lamas, once part of the Pan Asian Collection, thus, represents
both piece-by-piece and by acquiring several major collections. The first not only the history of the rapid growth of the Asian art market and interest
integration was a number of outstanding works from Dr. J. R. Belmont’s in Asian art in America from the mid-twentieth century but also Humann’s
impressive collection of Chola bronzes in the late sixties. The second coup extraordinary legacy as a collector, seeker and friend.