Jan van Capelle’s Shipping Scene on a Calm Sea with a Jetty at Left (Image: Sotheby's)[Missing Credit]
Among the other works on sale in February will be two still lifes from the 1620s by Pieter Claesz, which are each expected to fetch between $800,000 and $1,200,000, and a stunning oil on oak panel by Jan Jansz. den Uyl the Elder, which has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000.
Weindling was famous in New York as the owner of 1775 Broadway, a landmark building in Manhattan known to many as the Newsweek Building after the magazine moved its headquarters there in the early 1990s. Weindling bought it from General Motors and ran his business from there.
In private, the scholarly Weindling devoted himself to building up his art collection, specialising in the works of the 17th- century Dutch Masters.
According to George Wachter, the chairman of Sotheby’s North America and co-worldwide head of Old Masters at the auction house, Weindling had whittled down his collection towards the end of his long life.
“He often asked me about buying or selling paintings,” Wachter told the JC.
“But as he grew older he said he only wanted to surround himself with the best of the best – and so he held on to these 12 marvellous paintings.”
Wachter added: “Lester was quite a private person – but he loved to have a good time.
“I once went skiing with him in St Moritz and he was very sociable.
“He loved partying and right up until he was 96 years old he would have dinner parties at home.”
Lester Weindling and his wife Liana on a ski trip (Image: Weindling family)[Missing Credit]
Weindling and his wife Liana, who died in 2018, did not have children.
Wachter said: “I don’t yet know where the money will go but Lester asked me to sell these last 12 works.”
The likely beneficiaries of the sale are Weindling’s nephew and great-nieces.
Lester Luzian Weindling was born in Berlin in 1927, the elder of two brothers born to Nathaly Daly and Arnold Weindling. After the Nazis took power the family were stripped of their German citizenship in 1933.
The family fled Germany, first heading to London. On September 3, 1939, the day the Second World War broke out in Europe, the family arrived in New York.
Arnold began to buy up properties for rental in New York and his son Lester followed him into the business.
By the late 1960s the Weindlings owned more than 3,000 apartments in Queens and Manhattan.
The arrival of rent stabilisation regulations, however, prompted the family to shift their focus from residential to commercial real estate.
Lester Weindling acquired the leasehold of 1775 Broadway in 1969 and the freehold in 1990, owning it until 1999, when Iranian-Jewish businessman Joseph Moinian bought it for $130 million.
This deal enabled Weindling to indulge his passion for buying art, often under the tutelage of Wachter.
Weindling’s art collection is described by Sotheby’s as “full of museum-calibre gems, the real best of the best in the Dutch Golden Age”.
Elie Wiesel’s son Elisha Wiesel shared his memories of Weindling and his wife, speaking to the JC.
He said: “Liana was a close friend of my mother's, Marion Wiesel. We visited the Weindling's Hampton home when I was a child, and I remember my mother and Liana remaining quite close.
"They were elegant, secular Jews. Liana was a guide at the Metropolitan Museum. They attended Shabbat dinner, and possibly other chagim, at our home when I was growing up, but I'd be hard-pressed to tell you the last time that was.”
