The collections of the Crosbys – husband Bing and wife Kathryn – will be sold in a major New York auction this December. Among the lots are legendary movie props and costumes, but also a substantial personal collection of art, including major Faberge pieces.
Swinging on a Star: The Private Collection of Kathryn and Bing Crosby will be hosted at Sotheby’s on December 18.
Bing Crosby was a singer and actor whose career spanned six decades on record, radio, TV and film. His 1942 recording of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, from the movie Holiday Inn, is still the best selling single record of the physical media era, shifting at least 50 million copies.
Kathryn Crosby (nee Grandstaff) married Bing in 1955, early in her own acting career. She went on to enjoy a TV career, though she largely withdrew from work after her marriage.
Crosby, standing with Louis Armstrong, singing by the piano (a Sheraton-style satinwood and mahogany piece) that could sell for $30,000.
Sotheby’s say that the Crosbys built a “well informed and sophisticated” art collection.
Kathryn was a major Faberge collector. An enamel pillbox by the Russian-founded family jewellers has a top estimate of $50,000.
Bing loved English country life, an interest reflected in art like a hunting scene by Sir Alfred James Munnings.
Hollywood collectors will also find plenty from the couple’s public lives.
They can bid on the grand piano played in High Society, the Cole Porter-scored 1956 film in which Crosby starred alongside Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly and Louis Armstrong and his band, with whom Crosby performed Now You Has Jazz.
The piano carries a $20,000 to $30,000 estimate.
Kathryn Crosby died in 2024 and the collection is being sold by the couple’s children.
Harry Crosby, their son, told Town and Country magazine: “Saying goodbye to many of these items is difficult, but we recognize that a good home for these works is important.”
