Editor’s Note
Sotheby’s celebrated its new global headquarters in New York with a landmark evening jewelry auction—its first in ten years—generating $43.9 million in sales. The standout event featured a white-glove private collection, “A Legacy of Elegance,” which soared past estimates to fetch $13.9 million. Highlights included significant works by Suzanne Belperron and JAR, with a historic Boucheron necklace leading the evening’s top lots.
(IDEX Online) – Sotheby’s marked the opening of its new global headquarters in New York by holding its first evening jewelry auction in a decade, achieving total sales of $43.9 million.
The sale, on 8 December, featured A Legacy of Elegance: Jewels from an Exceptional Collection, a 56-lot private collection that produced a white glove result, with 100 percent of lots sold. The auction realized $13.9 million, well above Sotheby’s pre-sale estimate of $8 million.
Among the highlights were 24 lots by Suzanne Belperron, which collectively raised $3.5 million, and 12 lots by JAR (Joel Arthur Rosenthal), selling for $5.7 million.
The top lot of the evening was a Boucheron laurel wreath necklace, designed circa 1888 and set with seven cushion-shaped rubies totaling approximately 40 carats, accented by about 65 carats of old mine and old European-cut diamonds.
The necklace, once owned by American socialite Marie-Louise Mackay and later by the legendary Countess Mona Bismarck, sold for $1.3 million, against a pre-sale estimate of $1 million to $2 million.
The evening marked a significant milestone as Sotheby’s relocated to the Breuer Building — a landmark structure that was previously home to the Whitney Museum and the Met Breuer branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pic courtesy Sotheby’s shows the $1.3 million Boucheron necklace.