The True Tale of Two Matildas

The Stream Family Collection Auction at Christie’s

In 1931, at the bottom of the Depression, the Soviet government was moving Imperial Russian treasures through American department stores. The objects were Fabergé eggs, silver frames, hardstone carvings which had mostly been confiscated from the church, the aristocracy, and the Romanov family after the revolution. There it sat in Kremlin storage for a decade, and then released onto the Western market through Armand Hammer, an American industrialist who had been acquiring them from Soviet state museums at favorable prices since the 1920s. By the time Hammer opened his New York gallery and began placing the objects in department stores across the country, few Americans knew the name Fabergé.

Matilda Geddings Gray did or was about to. In 1933, the Louisiana oil and timber heiress, who leapfrogged her two brothers to take control of the family business in 1921 and who trained as a sculptor at Newcomb College’s School of Art acquired her first Fabergé object. Her interests ranged widely: Guatemalan Indigenous textiles, French bookbinding, Impressionist paintings, important jewelry. The Fabergé collecting would eventually consume four decades of her life, and produce one of the finest private collections in the world.

That collection, along with the holdings assembled and expanded by her niece and protégée, Matilda Gray Stream, is now coming to market at Christie’s. A Treasured History: The Stream Family Collection offers Fabergé, jewelry, paintings, sculpture, furniture, silver, porcelain, and antiquities across a live auction on June 9 and an online sale open through June 17. 

“This collection stands out for its rarity, provenance, and the remarkable connoisseurship behind it,” says Capera Ryan, Deputy Chairman of Christie’s Americas. “Matilda Geddings Gray began collecting Fabergé shortly after Armand Hammer brought Imperial treasures to the West in exchange for hard currency, giving her access to masterpieces at a pivotal moment. Over nearly four decades, she assembled one of the finest Fabergé collections in the world, acquiring each object with great deliberation.”

The holdings included four Imperial eggs and the Lilies of the Valley Basket, widely regarded as Fabergé’s great floral work and beloved by Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna. The auction highlights include an extremely rare gem-set silver rhinoceros automaton, estimated at $300,000 to $500,000, and a Russian three-color gold cup, cover, and stand presented to Count Saltykov in 1790 and later held in the collection of Emperor Nicholas II, estimated at the same range. An Imperial silver frame containing a portrait of Nicholas II appears in photographs from the 1902 Von Dervis Exhibition in St. Petersburg and in early-20th-century images of the Winter Palace. “Together, these works show Fabergé’s mastery of materials, engineering, humor, and naturalism,” Ryan says.

Five hardstone and enamel flower studies, with estimates ranging from $60,000 to $220,000, represent a less theatrical but equally demanding dimension of the house’s work. They look delicate. They are not. “Viewers should pay attention to the way Fabergé transforms hardstone, enamel, and rock crystal into compositions that feel alive,” Ryan says. “Their apparent fragility masks the extraordinary technical precision required to carve, enamel, and assemble each element.”

Gray’s eye extended well beyond Russian decorative arts. She developed a personal friendship with Diego Rivera and visited him and Frida Kahlo with her niece; Rivera painted two portraits of Stream that will remain in private family hands. His 1939 painting Niña con gallito, estimated at $300,000 to $500,000, comes to auction alongside an Edgar Degas and a William-Adolphe Bouguereau, together suggesting a collection shaped by curiosity rather than category alone.

Stream, whom Gray mentored from childhood, inherited not just the objects but the disposition behind them. Gray taught her niece to read blueprints and understand plumbing, practical knowledge for the properties they would steward. Together they restored the John Gauche House, an 1856 Italianate villa on Esplanade Avenue in the New Orleans’ French Quarter; Gray purchased it in 1937, and Stream restored it again in 1969. Stream later oversaw the Gray estate and family foundations, supporting the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Louisiana Museum Foundation, the Fabergé Arts Foundation, and the New York City Ballet. “The collection is rooted in the extraordinary bond between these two women,” Ryan says. “She nurtured her niece’s eye from an early age, passing down not only remarkable objects but also a shared sensibility, a belief in beauty, stewardship, and intellectual curiosity. Their partnership created a collection that reflects both their individual strengths and their intergenerational dialogue.”

The jewelry in the sale spans the antique period through mid-century, with a strong emphasis on Art Deco. Much of it was custom-made for the family and has been out of public view for more than a century. Among them the collection includes, Cartier pieces from the 1930s, works by Tiffany & Co., and rare examples incorporating Indian-inspired and antique Indian elements. “Many of the pieces were custom-made for the family and carry deeply personal histories,” Ryan says, “from bold Art Deco Cartier designs to the extraordinary 49.91-carat diamond ring. The jewelry ranges from whimsical to extravagant to intimately sentimental.”

That diamond ring anchors the sale at an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000 and carries one of the collection’s more memorable stories. Stream had once requested funds from her son for a 70-carat diamond; he countered that the money would be better spent on two tugboats for the family’s marine towing business. That stone was apparently later acquired by Richard Burton for Elizabeth Taylor. Years afterward, Stream called again, this time for the 49.91-carat diamond, and made clear the purchase was not up for discussion. Her great-nephew still calls it the tugboat diamond. “Beyond its extraordinary quality,” Ryan says, “it reflects her independence, humor, and unwavering sense of self.”

Both women treated ownership as something closer to stewardship. Gray established the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation before her death in 1971, stipulating that the collection be made available to a broad public. The Fabergé holdings went on display at the New Orleans Museum of Art and later at Cheekwood in Nashville before a significant portion entered a long-term loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Ownership is temporary; stewardship is a responsibility,” Ryan says. “Both Matildas approached their collection with a sense of duty, restoring historic properties, supporting cultural institutions, and placing major works on long-term loan. Their actions reflect a belief that great objects should be preserved and shared, not simply possessed.”

Stream died in 2023. The sale is, in part, what comes after. “Their story highlights the influence of Southern women whose contributions to American collecting have often been overlooked,” Ryan asserts. What goes to market in June is a fraction of what the two of them built, carefully, over a long time, and with some idea of where it should go.