Editor’s Note
This article discusses Christie’s decision to cancel a second auction of jewelry linked to an Austrian billionaire, citing “intensive research.” The collection’s history involves wealth accumulated during the Nazi era.
Global art auction house Christie’s announced on the 1st (local time) that it has canceled a second auction of jewelry belonging to an Austrian billionaire whose German husband amassed wealth under the Nazi regime, “following intensive research.”
Christie’s had previously sparked controversy in May by selling part of a large, hidden collection of over 700 jewels in Geneva, both online and offline, and was scheduled to hold a second auction this November.
In a press release, the UK-based auction house stated, “Christie’s has decided to cease further sales from the Estate of Heidi Horten.”
This auction, which sold only part of the collection, surpassed Christie’s previous record-breaking $100 million sales, such as the 2011 estate of actress Elizabeth Taylor and the 2019 ‘Maharajas & Mughal Magnificence’ collection.
Attention had been focused on the expectation that the second auction would yield a similar result.
However, following an initial report by The New York Times, Christie’s distributed a press release acknowledging that “the sale of the Heidi Horten Jewelry Collection has provoked intense scrutiny” and canceled the second auction. Christie’s added,
Numerous Jewish organizations had described Christie’s first auction of Heidi Horten’s jewels in May as “obscene” and urged the auction house to take more steps to determine how much of the property belonged to victims of the Nazis.
According to the American business magazine Forbes, this special collection was part of the $2.9 billion (approximately 38.266 trillion won) estate of Heidi Horten, who died last year at the age of 81.
A report released in January 2022 by historians commissioned by the Horten Foundation stated that Heidi Horten’s husband, Helmut Horten, who died in Switzerland in 1987, was a Nazi party member before being expelled.
In 1936, three years after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Horten acquired the textile company Alsberg in the western city of Duisburg after its Jewish owner fled. He later acquired several other stores that were Jewish-owned before the war.
In May, Christie’s defended its decision to proceed with the auction, with Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s International Head of Jewelry, telling AFP in an interview that all proceeds would be donated to charity.