By Mike Collett-White LONDON, May 2 (Reuters) - Ten works of art from one of the world's major private collections amassed by the late philanthropist Gustav Rau are to go on sale at Sotheby's in July, the auctioneer said on Friday. The German industrialist, who sold the family auto parts business, trained as a doctor and spent 20 years working in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, was seen as a scruffy eccentric who wore hiking boots to London's auction rooms. Every few months he would fly in a small plane from his hospital in the village of Ciriri to the Rwandan capital Kigali, and from there to London and beyond to satisfy his passion for buying art from the early Renaissance to the 20th century. "He was a quiet man, but you could tell he was very passionate about works of art and pictures," said Alex Bell, head of Sotheby's old master paintings in London. "He had a very personal response to them and was a very determined bidder," added Bell, who met Rau several times. The Rau collection, numbering some 1,000 works and valued in a 2001 report at $600 million, includes works by Fra Angelico, El Greco, Fragonard, Monet, Renoir and Cezanne. Despite his passion for art, Rau did not take the works back to Africa but left most of them in storage in Switzerland where he viewed them only occasionally. "It seems strange but it is by no means unique," Bell said. "I know of other passionate collectors for whom the owning of an object is as important as living with it every day." RWANDAN CONFLICT Rau was drafted into the Wehrmacht at the outbreak of World War Two where he served as an interpreter, but he surrendered to the British while entering Holland. In 1962 aged 40 he retrained as a doctor and went to Nigeria before moving to what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to a U.S. catalogue note accompanying a travelling exhibition of paintings from his collection, Rau planned to house his collection in a museum in Marseilles. But he abandoned the plan when resources became stretched by refugees arriving from Rwanda when civil war broke out. When his health started to fail, Rau returned to Europe in the early 1990s and lived in Monaco, where he medicated himself and was found roaming the streets. His behaviour prompted employees of his foundations to challenge his ability to run affairs, and his assets and art collection were briefly frozen before he regained control. In 2001 he announced he would leave 700 works to the German branch of U.N. children's agency Unicef. That included some which he said must not be sold for the next 25 years. Another 300 or so works were left to his estate. Rau died in January 2002 aged 79. The 10 works going on sale in London on July 9 in the old master paintings auction include works by French, Italian, Dutch and Flemish masters such as Pierre Patel the Elder, Taddeo di Bartolo and Balthasar van der Ast. Their worth is estimated at $4.2-6.6 million, and the proceeds will go to covering Rau's estate costs and supporting his hospital at Ciriri, Sotheby's said. (To read more about our entertainment news, visit our blog "Fan Fare" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare)
A pro-democracy campaigner holds a plastic torch they call "Democracy Torch" at the torch relay ceremony in Hong Kong May 2, 2008. Eight protesters were detained briefly in Hong Kong and ...
