Folk Art Collection From Imprisoned Former Museum Chairman Going to Auction More than 200 watercolors, furniture, carvings, weathervanes and other valuable items that were once destined for the American Folk Art Museum are being auctioned at Sotheby's on Jan. 25. The collection, estimated to be worth between $6.4 million and $9.5 million, belonged to the museum's former chairman Ralph O. Esmerian, the former owner of the jewelry retailer Fred Leighton, who is currently serving a six-year sentence for a series of financial frauds totaling $210 million. Mr. Esmerian had promised to donate his entire collection to the Folk Art Museum in 2005, but at the same time he had used some of the works as collateral for multimillion dollar loans from Sotheby's and Christie's. In March a bankruptcy judge allowed the museum to keep 53 works of its choice, with the rest going to auction to pay off Mr. Esmerian's creditors. Sotheby's calls it "the most important assemblage of American folk art ever to appear at auction."