Chiang Widow’s Leftovers Draw Auction Crowd

Hundreds of people braved freezing temperatures Saturday to snap up old furniture, appliances, and even pots and pans owned by Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, the 101-year-old widow of Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, at an auction.

The 800 antiques and pieces of bric-a-brac were expected to fetch between $150,000 and $200,000, said Gary Braswell, owner of the Braswell Galleries auction house in Norwalk.

Mme. Chiang, who is revered by many Chinese Americans, moved to the United States from Taiwan after her husband’s death in 1975. She recently vacated her mansion in Lattingtown, Long Island, and moved to New York City. Coming under the auctioneer’s hammer were the contents of the Long Island mansion, Hillcrest.

The event drew a largely Chinese American crowd from around the Northeast, as well as antique dealers, wealthy suburbanites and the merely curious. Each paid $25 to get in.

“We tried to do it so that people could get something that’s associated with her without it having to be a $2,000 to $3,000 item,” Braswell told reporters shortly before the auction.

The most expensive property was a pair of ornate French chandeliers, listed in the catalog at between $40,000 and $60,000. They ended up selling for $62,500 to an undisclosed bidder who took part via telephone.

A Braswell staff member estimated the crowd at between 200 and 300.

Mme. Chiang was born in 1897, in China’s Guangdong Province. She married Chiang Kai-shek in 1927.