From April 22nd through April 25th, Michael Jackson will be auctioning off more than 2,000 items from his personal collection of paintings, sculptures, furniture, and memorabilia from his Neverland Ranch. It’s rumored that this auction has been necessitated by the singer’s financial problems, and the huge number of items that are up for sale would suggest that his spending has been profligate, but it’s still a bit hard to believe that a man whose fortune had once been estimated at $1 billion could now be close to destitute. Perhaps he has had some additional financial obligations that have not been publicized.

The Neverland Ranch

The auction catalog

I passed through Los Angeles on my way back from Tahiti and I had the chance to view the collection, which can also be seen online (by the way, Julien’s Auctions has done an excellent job of organizing this collection and presenting the electronic catalog, which should be used as a model by any conventionally printed magazine that would like to move online). You might recall that I was one of many thousands who were lucky enough to view Yves Saint Laurent’s collection before its auction in February. That collection was spectacular, this collection is less so (to put it mildly). The assortment of arcade games that are being put up for auction could furnish a children’s museum, and it’s fun to imagine Michael Jackson playing Dance Dance Revolution on his own machine. I assume that he would do very well, but you never know. The furniture that is being offered would look just fine in the home of any grandmother in New England, a bit old-fashioned but acceptable nonetheless. On the other hand, the decorative art, including the countless sculptures of children at play, ranges from the mediocre to the truly horrendous. Here are some particularly eye-catching lots:

The Neverland gates (estimate: $20,000 to $30,000)

A painting of Mr. Jackson (estimate: $2,000 to $3,000)

A painting of Mr. Jackson with some of his friends (estimate: $3,000 to $5,000)

A painting by Macaulay Culkin (estimate: $300 to $400)

A customized golf cart, with Michael Jackson as Peter Pan (estimate: $4,000 to $6,000)

A representative statue of a young boy playing basketball (estimate: $80 to $120)

Of course, Michael Jackson might be smarter than the rest of us. Here is Jeff Koons’s famous statue of Michael Jackson and his chimp Bubbles that was priced at $250,000 in 1988 and sold at auction for $5.6 million in 2001. That’s a ridiculous price for a statue that is so excessive that it surpasses the quaint and the kitschy and instead falls into the realm of the grotesque, but if somebody was willing to buy it for $5.6 million, then Michael Jackson’s lots could do very well indeed.

Jeff Koons's statue of Michael Jackson with his chimp Bubbles (1988)

One final note. In his last post, David Desmond said, “Now if Bernard Dauphin would just step aside, I would have this blog all to myself.” I’ve enjoyed serving as a contributor to The Rich Life, but that’s a rather selfish and insulting statement. Mr. Desmond and I have had a (relatively) cordial relationship in the recent past, but I still smart from some of the stereotypes of the French that he included in his book The Misadventures of Oliver Booth: Life in the Lap of Luxury. Well, perhaps I will come to the aid of Mr. Desmond by lending some validity to one of those stereotypes, because I’m declaring that as of now, as illustrated by one final item from Michael Jackson’s collection, I’m going on strike. Oliver Booth should not be the only contributor with the right to take a break.

Bernard Dauphin

Update: I have just learned that Michael Jackson’s legal team has been successful in their efforts to have this auction stopped. That’s too bad, because I have no idea where else you’re going to be able to find an original oil painting by Macaulay Culkin.