“The sale of Heidi Horten’s jewelry collection provoked strong criticism, and the reaction to it deeply affected us and many others,” quoted the industry newspaper “The Art Newspaper”, responsible for Europe, Africa and the Middle East in the Kingdom. United. auction house as Christie’s president, Anthea Peers, said.
There is talk of the “intended scrutiny” to which the company was subjected by Jewish organizations and some collectors, according to the “New York Times” (“NYT”), which, like other media outlets, recalls that in the auction “The World of Heidi Horten” in May, jewels worth 202 million dollars (186 million euros) were auctioned.
Portal/Denis Balibouse Horten’s jewelry collection was previously estimated to be worth around $150 million (138 million euros) – a figure already surpassed in the first auction
“PR nightmare”
Despite Christie’s promise of donations for Holocaust research, the auction caused continued turmoil. “The sale became a public relations nightmare for the auction house,” writes the online portal Artnet.
So it wasn’t just important clients like Cathy Lasry, wife of American billionaire Marc Lasry, who complained about the procedure. There was also the accusation of whitewashing. According to Artnet, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial also rejected Christie’s proposed donation. Additionally, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art canceled an event on the topic of restitution organized by Christie’s in connection with criticism of the hoarding auction.
Billions in assets inherited from the “department store king”.
Horten, who died last year at the age of 81, left a fortune equivalent to around 2.6 billion euros, including a jewelry collection made up of around 700 pieces, according to estimates by the business magazine “Forbes”. According to “Standard”, a foundation founded by Horten in Vaduz in 2020 is behind the sale. They planned to “use the resources to finance several ‘philanthropic projects’, including the private museum in Vienna”, as the newspaper also reported.
However, the auction not only highlighted Horten’s role as a wealthy patroness, but also the origin of her wealth and thus the role of her husband Helmut Horten, who died in 1987, during the National Socialist era.
Christie’s has canceled remaining sales of jewelry from the estate of late Austrian art collector Heidi Horten, after the auction house came under fire over the origins of Horten’s wealth https://t.co/QajKzZbbDC
– The Art Newspaper (@TheArtNewspaper) August 31, 2023
According to a historian’s report published in January 2022, the German “king of department stores” was a long-time member of the NSDAP. In 1936, three years after the Nazis seized power, he took control of the Alsberg textile department store in Duisburg at the age of 27 after its Jewish owners fled. He later took over other companies that were previously owned by Jewish owners.
He was therefore accused of having benefited from the “Aryanization” of Jewish businesses during the Nazi era. Numerous Jewish organizations therefore called for the suspension of the jewelry auction in order to clarify the extent to which Horten’s wealth belonged to persecuted Jews and their descendants.
“Signal to all auction houses”
According to media reports, it was also heavily criticized that Christie’s initially apparently did not reveal the Nazi origin of Horten’s possessions. Holocaust survivor David Schaecter, president of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation (HSF) USA, hailed the cancellation of the second hoarding auction as an important victory for the Jewish community.
We are pleased that global outrage over the sale of the illicit assets has caused the auction house to now cancel the planned sale of more Horten jewelry. The decision is also a “signal to all auction houses about the consequences of selling what he called spoiled goods”, as the “NYT” also reports with reference to Schaecter’s broadcast.