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01-05-2023
GENEVA: Christie’s auction house will next week launch the sale of 700 jewels belonging to Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten, whose German businessman husband made his fortune under the Nazis.
Heidi Horten, worth $2.9 billion according to Forbes, died last year aged 81.
The famous auction house will accept bids for Horten’s collection which includes “unique and exceptional pieces” from 20th-century designers such as Cartier, Harry Winston, Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels.
Four hundred of the Horten lots will be sold at Christie’s Geneva auction house from May 10 to 12. The whole collection has an estimated value of more than $150 million.
The sale is expected to break all previous records set by Christie’s in sales of possessions that belonged to actress Elizabeth Taylor in 2011 and the “Maharajas and Mughal Magnificence” collection in 2019. Both collections exceeded $100 million.
According to the auction house, a 25.59 carats Cartier ruby and diamond ring, weighing in at 25.59 carats and having “a saturated pigeon-blood red color and fine purity,” will lead the auction.
Max Fawcett, head of jewelry at Christie’s in Geneva said: “What makes this collection particularly remarkable is the breadth and quality of the gemstones represented.
“You’ll find everything from costume jewelry and one-of-a-kind haute joaillerie pieces, to historic jewels with exceptional provenance,” he added.
According to a January 2022 report by historians authorised by the Horten Foundation, Horten’s husband Helmut Horten was a member of the Nazi party before being expelled.
Horten took over the textile company Alsberg based in the western city of Duisburg after its Jewish owners fled Germany in 1936. Adolf Hitler seized power in 1936. (Int’l News Desk)
