Sotheby’s To Auction Royal Things

The world just can’t buy enough of the Windsors.

In June, bidders at a Christie’s auction snapped up Princess Di’s old royal frocks. Now competitor Sotheby’s is banking that even royals long dead and deglamorized can still generate Anglophile fascination and auction frenzy.

More than 400 lots of clothing and accessories belonging to a couple once called the 20th century’s most stylish, H.R.H. the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York from Sept. 11 to 19.

The clothes are to be sold along with furniture, artworks, books, photos, letters - a total of 43,900 items - the contents of the Windsors’ Paris home. The collection, gathered into 3,200 lots, goes on pre-sale exhibition Sept. 5.

Sotheby’s officials say the collection is notable for “providing a unique record of both the public and private lives of the former king and the woman he abdicated the throne to marry.”

More than that, the collection includes items saturated with history and sentiment, such as the morning coat and trousers the duke wore at his wedding to Wallis Warfield Simpson on June 3, 1937. Its estimated selling price: $10,000 to $15,000.

The Duchess of Windsor was on the Best Dressed List for 40 years. This sale’s strength, though, is in the accessories: gloves, fans, scarves; riding habits and hats; parasols and handbags.