Editor’s Note
This article discusses the upcoming auction of the late Heidi Horten’s jewelry collection by Christie’s. The sale has drawn attention both for its potential to set a sales record and for the ongoing controversy surrounding the origins of the Horten fortune, which was partly amassed through the Nazi-era expropriation of Jewish businesses.
Christie’s is auctioning the jewelry collection of the late Austrian millionaire Heidi Horten this week. The event is surrounded by some controversy due to the origin of her ex-husband’s fortune, who expropriated Jewish businesses during the Nazi regime, but also by anticipation for the possibility of breaking sales records. The most important pieces of the auction were shown to the press this Monday at the Hotel des Bergues, a luxurious establishment on the banks of the confluence of Lake Geneva and the Rhône River, where the bidding will take place this Wednesday, May 10, and Friday, May 12.
Among them stands out the Briolette of India, a necklace with a 90-carat diamond from the jewelry firm Harry Winston, originally sold by Cartier in 1909, with a starting price of 11.8 million dollars (10.7 million euros). Another piece attracting many looks is the Great Mogul, another necklace in this case made of diamonds and a large pearl with an estimated price between 500,000 and 720,000 dollars (458,000-652,000 euros).
These are jewels “from great houses like Harry Winston, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and there are more than a hundred pieces from Bulgari that Horten acquired in the 70s and 80s, especially in Rome,” indicated the expert.
Another star jewel of the auction belongs to the Italian jewelry brand: the Sunrise Ruby, a ring with a 25-carat precious stone, intense red color and exceptional purity, with an estimated value between 15 and 20 million dollars (13.5-18.1 million euros).
Christie’s aspires to achieve more than 150 million dollars (135 million euros) in this auction, which, if achieved, would make the Horten collection the most expensive ever sold by the British house in more than 250 years of history.
Until now, only two private collections auctioned by this house have achieved more than 100 million dollars: the jewels of Elizabeth Taylor, which attracted enormous media attention in 2011, and the one called Maharajas & Mughal Magnificence, sold in 2019. The Horten collection also attracts attention due to the dark past of the millionaire’s first husband, Helmut Horten (1909-87), who during the Nazi regime acquired businesses expropriated from Jewish entrepreneurs to later own the largest department store chain in his country, Germany.
It was explained that part of the income will be allocated to Jewish organizations dedicated to Holocaust research and memory. Furthermore, via the Heidi Horten Foundation based in Vaduz (capital of Liechtenstein), another part of the profits will be dedicated to promoting art.
Heidi Horten, who became the richest woman in Austria, not only devoted part of her life to collecting jewels but also artworks: she acquired some by prestigious contemporary authors such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dan Flavin, or Andy Warhol. Many of them are exhibited in the museum that the millionaire inaugurated in Vienna on June 2, 2022, just ten days before her death in Klagenfurt.
Married three times, Horten had no children, and expressed in her will the wish that her jewels be sold to finance charitable work. Of the 700 jewels in the Horten collection, 400 will be auctioned this week in the Wednesday and Friday sessions, and the rest will be put up for sale by Christie’s online, between this month and November.