The firm was founded by Deborah Schmidt Robinson, a former Senior Vice President and Executive Director of Trusts & Estates at Sotheby’s, who has worked with private clients, fiduciaries and beneficiaries for over 25 years.
Over the course of her career, Mrs. Robinson has been instrumental in the sale of property from numerous significant estates and collections, including those of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Sam Simon, Edward P. Evans, Brooke Astor, Catherine Gamble Curran, John Pierpont Morgan II, Stella Fischbach, Bill Blass, Mary Schiller Myers and Louis S. Myers, Charles Ryskamp, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Watson, Jr., The Blair Family Collection and Ambassador and Mrs. Joseph Verner Reed, to name a few.
Deborah Schmidt Robinson
A career highlight was her pivotal role in the consignment and sale of the Guennol Lioness, a 5,000-year-old limestone sculpture depicting an anthropomorphic lioness-woman – a symbol of a warrior and protector. In 2007, the three-and-a-quarter inch sculpture sold for a record $57.1 million, the proceeds of which benefited a charitable trust.
Since November 2016, Mrs. Robinson has been the auction consultant on special projects for the United Nations. She is also a Trustee and on the Executive Committee of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art and is a Board Member of the Sweet Briar College Friends of Art, her alma mater. Additionally, Mrs. Robinson is on the Board of Trustees of the Greenwich Historical Society and is a member of the New York Historical Society’s Planned Giving Advisory Council. She is certified in Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) and has been a frequent guest lecturer on the art market, planning for art collections and on appraisal matters with the IRS Art Panel.
