A Napoleon III Gilt Bronze Mounted Marquetry Cabinet

19th Century

Height 40 x width 28 1/2 x depth 10 1/2 inches.

Lucia von Borosini Batten was born in Chicago in 1911, the only child of Baron Victor von Borosini and Edith Dorr von Borosini. Her parents were connected with Hull House, the famous settlement house established in Chicago for social reform by philanthropist and social innovator Jane Addams. Ms. Addams was Lucia’s godmother. The von Borosinis traced their lineage back to Venetian nobility, while the Dorrs were descended from old New England stock and had prospered in the lumber and mining businesses.

She was educated in Europe and America at schools in Italy, France, Switzerland, California, Michigan and Connecticut. Lucia spoke five languages - English, German, Italian, Spanish, and French. Well before she finished her education, Lucia had traveled widely both in America and Europe but ultimately settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she purchased an adobe hacienda built in 1875 with an interior courtyard. It was love at first sight. She purchased the home and thirty years later it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is one of very few territorial haciendas remaining in New Mexico.

By the time Lucia was 50, she had attended private schools in four different countries, made many Atlantic crossings, two voyages through the Panama Canal and traveled extensively throughout Europe. She had been presented at the court of King George V and Queen Mary, had been divorced three times and married four, established friendships with noted British writers such as Vyvyan Holland (son of Oscar Wilde), accumulated a vast and valuable book collection and raised three sons.

Lucia was a wealthy woman who loved collecting “because she could.” She appears to have started collecting paintings and drawings by the 1940s, and continued doing so until the end of her life. Well-respected regional artists such as Dan Lutz, James Harill, Christopher Gerlach, Ou Mie Shu and George Dick were among her favorites. Her book collections featured private press books produced in limited editions mostly in the early 20th century by English firms. The books were housed in their own private library, built in 1966, adjacent to her house.

A special work titled My Three Fates was a painting by Dorothy Brett of Mabel Dodge Luhan, Frieda Lawrence, and Dorothy Brett seated around a table; in the background D. H. Lawrence is seen through a doorway sitting against a tree. The painting now belongs to the Albuquerque Museum.

In 2005, at the age of 93, Lucia passed away in her home. Lucia left her old adobe and much of its contents, along with an endowment to support upkeep of the house and property, to the Albuquerque Museum Foundation, a private non-profit whose mission is to raise funds for exhibition support of permanent and traveling exhibits, acquisitions of artwork and historic objects and educational programs at the Albuquerque Museum. Restored and remodeled, the old adobe hacienda serves as the offices for the Albuquerque Museum Foundation. The bedrooms were made into offices, and the library, which continues to hold thousands of books as well as paintings and other collections, serves as a meeting space for the Foundation.

Property from the Estate of Lucia von Borosini Batten, sold to benefit the Albuquerque Museum Foundation