On Tuesday morning, Adam’s Auctioneers will auction more 100 items from Mrs Bullitt’s estate in their Fine Period Furniture and Decorative Arts Sale in Dublin.

Jane Beattie, associate director, Adam’s, said Anne Bullitt was a glamorous American socialite, who was well known for her great taste and great sense of style.

“Her collections of vintage haute couture clothing and jewellery are internationally renowned, and we’re delighted to be offering for sale some of her more personal, everyday items that largely decorated Palmerston House,” said Jane.

Anne Bullitt died in Dublin in August 2007 after a long illness and was known for her large collection of haute couture clothing and jewellery.

Anne’s father was William Christian Bullitt, the American millionaire diplomat, journalist and novelist. Her mother, who died when she was eight, was Louise Bryant, an American journalist and radical who counted Eugene O’Neill and F. Scott Fitzgerald as friends and who was part of the Parisian ex-patriot set of the 1920s.

Louise Bryant witnessed first hand the Bolshevik Revolution in Moscow with her first husband, John Reed. Their tempestuous relationship was the basis for the 1981, Oscar-winning film “Reds”, with Reed played by Warren Beatty and Bryant by Diane Keating.

After Reed’s death in 1920, Bryant remained in Europe as a leading correspondent for the Hearst newspaper chain; she interviewed Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic and Mussolini gave his first interview with a news correspondent to her. Around this time she met Bill Bullitt and the couple later married in Paris in 1923. In 1924 Anne was born. By 1928 their marriage was floundering, partly due to Louise’s contraction of an incurable and painful skin condition, which led to her reliance on alcohol, which in turn led to bouts of depression and paranoia. The couple divorced in 1930 and Bullitt retained sole custody of Anne.

During the 1930s, `Little Anne Bullitt` as the press often dubbed her, was her father’s companion and aide during his travels and foreign assignments as Ambassador to the Soviet Union and France under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Anne treasured the memories of her meetings with foreign dignitaries and heads of state. During one of her visits to Hyde Park when she was twelve, Roosevelt, expecting a delegation of local politicians, told her to hide behind the sofa in his study so she could overhear their conversation.

After the war, she bought the 700 acre Palmerston estate in, County Kildare, Ireland and for the next forty years this provided the setting for her distinguished racing career, in which she became the first female breeder and trainer of thoroughbred horses in Ireland and Palmerston Stud became the largest horse farm.

Posted: 06|8|08 at 11:38 am. Filed under: Auction News.