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A multimillionaire widow, diamonds and a fortune built from Nazi looting: what is hidden in Christie's largest jewelry auction

2023-04-09T14:25:10.496Z


The British house puts up for sale 700 pieces from the private collection of Heidi Horten, wife of the owner of a department store chain in Germany who amassed her wealth during World War II. Bids are expected to reach more than $150 million, a figure unreached so far


Lope de Vega wrote in the verses of his work

La Circe

(1624): "That the shadow of a powerful man / clear lineage / covers a thousand crimes".

Centuries later, Honoré de Balzac would also say: "Behind every great fortune there is a hidden crime."

Many dark elements seem to hide what is announced as the largest jewelery auction that Christie's is going to officiate, which will take place next May in Geneva.

The British house will put up for sale 700 jewels from the private collection of Heidi Horten (1941-2022), an art collector and philanthropist who became the richest woman in Austria — Forbes came to value her estate at 3,000

million

dollars

thanks to the fortune she inherited from her husband, Helmut Horten, after his death in 1987. The German businessman and owner of the Horten AG department store chain belonged to the Nazi party and amassed his wealth during World War II.

It was thanks to this fortune that Heidi Horten, who met her first husband when she was 19 and he was 51—they married six years later—was able to acquire a large collection of jewelry throughout her life.

Among her treasures, unique creations by Cartier, Harry Winston, Boivin and Van Cleef & Arpels, as well as an important selection of pearls, jade pieces and Bulgari creations from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Her jeweler came to keep Marie Antoinette's pearl, which the Austrian heiress bought in 2018 at a Sotheby's auction for 36 million dollars (more than 33 million euros), a record figure for the auction house.

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"Horten built a very sophisticated collection, combining vintage and modern designs from the world's leading jewelry houses," said Rahul Kadakia, Christie's jewelry expert, in a statement.

The collection is expected to sell for more than $150 million, a figure the firm has never reached.

Only twice have they exceeded $100 million at auction: the bid for actress Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry in 2011, and the bid for pieces of Indian royalty in 2019.

Among the jewels in this lot are the so-called Briolette from India, a 90-carat diamond necklace made by the Harry Winston firm and originally sold by Cartier in 1909. Also the so-called Grand Mughal, another necklace with a pendant from the same firm, but in this case of emeralds, and which is valued between 500,000 and 700,000 dollars.

These two necklaces are joined by dozens of brooches, jade earrings and rings such as the so-called Sunrise Ruby, a 25-carat pink Cartier piece, valued between 15 and 20 million dollars.

Christie's will present 400 of the 700 jewels in two live auctions at the Hotel Des Bergues in Geneva (May 10 and 12), and in a parallel online sale (between May 3 and 15), in addition to another bid that will be held in November.

Various pieces by Boivin and Van Cleef & Arpels and, on the right, Briolette from India, a 90-carat diamond necklace made by the jewelry firm Harry Winston.

The enormous expectation around this collection and its sale has led to a previous

tour

of the most important pieces, which will be on tour throughout the month of April to be appreciated in cities such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Vienna, New York, London or Singapore.

The proceeds from the auction will go to the Heidi Horten Foundation, which will finance medical research and other philanthropic activities, as well as the maintenance of the museum of modern and contemporary art that the billionaire widow opened in Vienna on June 9, 2022, just three days before his death.

"A completely unexpected death", were the words used by the museum to announce that Horten had died at the age of 81 in her house on Lake Wörthersee (Austria).

Diamond, sapphire and emerald necklace, by Bulgari, which is part of one of Heidi Horten's lots to be auctioned by Christie's.

A private art gallery surrounded by controversy

Jewelry was not the only piece of art that Horten, who married two more times after being widowed, was devoted to collecting.

Since the nineties, he began to acquire modern and contemporary art.

The 1,000 million dollars that she inherited from her husband in 1987 placed her on the

Forbes

list of the 500 richest people in the world and allowed her to expand the art collection that the couple already had, adding pieces by artists such as Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso , Henri Matisse, René Magritte, Marc Chagall, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, among others.

Her first two acquisitions, already as a widow, would be a work by the painter Moïse Kisling and another by Emmanuel Mané-Katz, purchased at auction in Tel Aviv in 1994.

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A post shared by Heidi Horten Collection (@heidihorten.collection)

In 2018, Horten decided to partner with the Leopold Museum in Vienna and present his private collection in a temporary exhibition with more than 170 of his works called

WOW!

The Heidi Horten Collection

, focused on Expressionism and American Pop

.

That first contact with the artistic circuit prompted the heiress to pursue one of her dreams: having her own museum.

However, the opening of this was surrounded by controversy.

The main criticisms of the creation of the private gallery were once again marked by the origin of her immense fortune.

To try to placate them, she commissioned a report on her husband's business activity, the conclusion of which was that the tycoon took advantage of Nazi policy by cheaply acquiring properties from plundered Jews, but without him being the one who had actively provoked the usurpations.

“I am proud, with my collection and the construction of the museum, to have created something lasting,

Heidi Horten, wearing an emerald and diamond necklace now up for auction. The Heidi Horten Foundation

That dream of creating something lasting for future generations came to fruition less than a year ago, when Horten opened the private gallery with a collection of more than 500 works in a 16,000-square-meter historic building in the heart of Vienna, between the State Opera and the Albertina museum, which the collector acquired and adapted for about 30 million dollars, according to local media reports at the time.

“It is the museum of a woman who built a fantastic collection in the last 35 years that is among the 200 most important in the world,” said Agnes Husslein-Arco, director of the Heidi Horten Collection, before the opening.

A collection she began to build Horten at another landmark auction, when in just a few hours the wealthy heiress spent as much as $22 million on a 1996 Sotheby's art bid,

acquiring pieces by Francis Bacon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir or Paul Klee among others.

A figure, that if the omens come true, some bidder may also spend on his jewelry.

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A post shared by Heidi Horten Collection (@heidihorten.collection)

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-04-09

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