I was whisked inside, where her daughter, her granddaughter and an assorted collection of nieces were chopping spinach, slicing potatoes and seasoning chicken and oxtail for our dinner.
Olivier Senn, a cotton trader, collected the paintings and drawings of Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Degas and those who followed including Bonnard, Matisse and Derain among others; and in 2004, his granddaughter gave his considerable collection to the Malraux Museum.
A few pictures later we will see her lying in her coffin, attended by her daughter and granddaughter and some dolls from her collection.
She happily gave her collection of antique furniture to her granddaughter and bought herself contemporary upholstered chairs and kidney-bean-shaped sofas, all covered in smooth black fabric.
Thomas's granddaughter Hannah Ellis said the centre housed the largest collection of Thomas-related material in the world providing "a unique insight into who my grandfather truly was".
Two near-contemporary copies, usually attributed to the Ghent Master of 1499 and Jan Gossaert, were completed while the original was in the collection of Margaret of Austria, great-granddaughter of Philip the Good.
Her mother, Irene Muriel Sherman, was the granddaughter of John Carter Brown, the philanthropist and bibliophile whose book collection formed the basis of the John Carter Brown Library for research in history and humanities at Brown University.
Suzanne Glass, a journalist in Manhattan and a great-granddaughter of Hans Sachs, is making a documentary about the collection, incorporating interviews with Peter Sachs.
Pablo Picasso's granddaughter is to sell one of the most extensive collections of the artist's ceramics in an attempt to help her turn the page on a traumatic, miserable childhood.
The collection was a gift of Bettina Burr, the granddaughter of Baron and Baroness Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild of Vienna.
It's been almost 14 years since Madeline Weinrib, the granddaughter of the ABC Carpet & Home founder Max Weinrib, introduced her first collection of rugs there.
