That wasn’t the only time Clarissa has bought artwork over the phone. In 1995, on a flight to China, the Bronfmans were keenly aware of a Sotheby’s sale of IBM’s corporate collection taking place back in New York. Mid-flight, they grabbed the phone attached to the seat in front of them. “We couldn’t hear anything!” Clarissa reminisces. From the air, they bought Diego Rivera’s Dance in Tehuantepec for a reported $3.1 million, which now occupies a prominent position in their main hall. Later, they discovered it to be the very work for which Rivera had done the sketch that Edgar won from Barry Diller.

Across the hall is a monumental Jesus Rafael Soto work that Clarissa bought while lunching with friends at Geisha, a sleek socialite haven off Madison Avenue. “I was on the phone, whispering to the girl who bids for us, and she said, ‘Do you want it?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’” The next day, when she told a friend in the arts about her new Soto, he replied that it wasn’t selling until that night. As it turned out, Clarissa had bought the wrong Soto, one five times as big. “It wouldn’t fit in any of our houses and just barely fits here,” she recalls, giggling over the mix-up.

That was nothing compared to the time she tried to sneak home a gigantic painting of the Virgin of Guadeloupe. “I went to the sale, and [Edgar] asked me, ‘Did you buy anything?’ and I said no. I have so many saints and virgins that, when I went to see it at auction, I didn’t think he would notice.” But when the huge crate arrived at their house, she had to open it in front of him. She remembers his reaction well. “He said, ‘It’s bigger than me! I’ve allowed you small ones, but I can’t allow you this. I’m Jewish!” As in any good marriage, they compromised: Clarissa sent the painting to her mother and in return got to keep the valuable frame.  

Clarissa, now interested in contemporary Latin American art, has just installed an abstract painting by Venezuelan artist Arturo Herrera in the front hall. A board member at the Museum of Modern Art, she is also looking into video art and Chinese contemporary photography, but Latin American art remains her primary passion. “I can’t go back to Venezuela and feel fine” under Hugo Chavez, she laments. “More and more, I want to collect Latin American art, because I don’t have my country. So I surround myself with what is me.”