Believed at $150 Million, the Most Important Jewelry Collection Heads to Auction in May perhaps

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The late billionaire collector Heidi Horten’s jewellery, value a total of US$150 million, will be auctioned throughout a sequence of revenue at Christie’s starting off in May well.

This will mark the most precious jewelry assortment to come to auction, surpassing the collections of Elizabeth Taylor and Qatar royal household member Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al Thani, Christie’s stated. 

The Taylor assortment, comprising 80 lots, offered for US$116 million at a Christie’s auction in December 2011 in New York. The sale of Al Thani’s assortment, with almost 400 parts, reached much more than US$109 million at Christie’s, also in New York, in 2019. Individuals are the only two jewelry collections to reach much more than US$100 million, Christie’s reported.

Born and lifted in Vienna, Austria, Horten began accumulating jewelry and will work of artwork throughout her very first marriage with Helmut Horten, operator of office keep and supermarket chains in Germany through Globe War II. In 2020, she reportedly commissioned a report that uncovered her ex-spouse experienced benefited fiscally from the Nazi condition by way of grocery suppliers confiscated from Jewish proprietors.  

Immediately after her spouse died in 1987, she started developing her personal assortment of contemporary and modern art, concentrating on is effective by artists these kinds of as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Damien Hirst.

She died final June at the age of 81, just 10 days following opening her eponymous museum of fashionable art in Vienna. Forbes estimated her web really worth at US$3 billion.

Proceeds from the jewelry sale will gain the Heidi Horten Basis, which was proven in 2020 and offers aid to the museum, as nicely as healthcare investigation and other philanthropic causes.

“This is a historic second for Christie’s to have the privilege of offering 1 of the world’s greatest and most critical jewelry collections originating from Europe,” Anthea Friends, president of Christie’s EMEA, claimed in a information release. “Furthermore, to witness a philanthropic effort and hard work of this scale is as scarce as it is amazing.”    

The additional than 700-piece collection brings together classic and present day layouts from the primary jewellery houses of the environment, which include Boivin, Bulgari, Cartier, Kochert, Tiffany, Harry Winston, and Van Cleef & Apparels. 

Highlights contain a 25-carat, ruby-and-diamond ring by Cartier, estimated concerning US$15 million and US$20 million a 90-carat Briolette of India diamond necklace by Harry Winston, at first marketed by Cartier in 1909, approximated in the area of US$10 million and a 3 strand pure pearl necklace with a cushion-formed, 11-carat pink diamond clasp, also by Harry Winston, estimated to market for among US$7 million and US$10 million.

A find of 400 jewels will be auctioned at two live auctions on Might 10 and 12 in Geneva. 1st online auction of the remainder will operate from Might 3 by way of 15 and a next on-line-only auction will be held in November, Christie’s reported.