Art dealer Robert Ellsworth (right) has spent most of his illustrious career building up some of the best collections for his clients who read like a who's who of the world's wealthiest.
Among them are the granddaddy of take-overs, Norton Simon, Count Christian Humann, John D. Rockefeller III and sugar tsar Peter Ludwig.
Considered one of the best international dealers in Asian art, Ellsworth had his first taste of the art world when he quit school at 15 and started selling to antique dealers snuff bottles he had picked up for a song from the China War Relief.
'I sold my whole collection of snuff bottles when I was 17 and haven't looked back since,' says Ellsworth, who owns some of the most important and precious collections of 12th century Chinese calligraphic rubbings. They have been exhibited in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
Today he lives between his palatial apartment in New York, a restored grist mill in Connecticut and Hong Kong. His clients in the territory include Sir Joseph Hotung and Raymond and Mimi Hung.
'All my clients have become good friends, otherwise they would never have been my good clients.' Ellsworth explains that Asian art has become popular among international collectors of late because 'you can still buy a major masterpiece at a reasonable price'.
