05/10/2023 19:56 (act. 05/10/2023 20:00)
The “Briolette of India” also comes from the Horten Collection ©APA/AFP
Auction house Christie’s has been auctioning Austrian heiress Heidi Horten’s exclusive jewelry collection for a week now. Following an online auction, some of the most spectacular pieces went on sale at Christie’s in Geneva on Wednesday and Friday. But the shadow of German businessman Helmut Horten’s Nazi past looms over the jewels – and there are growing calls from Jewish organizations to halt the auction.
The estate of the heiress Horten, who died last year at the age of 81, includes a total of 700 pieces of jewellery, whose value is estimated at between 150 and 200 million dollars (137 to 183 million euros). The online auction of 300 lots runs from May 3rd to May 15th. Fewer than 100 pieces were offered on Wednesday, with a further 150 lots scheduled for Friday in Geneva before the online auction resumes in November with the remaining jewels.
Among the highlights is a Cartier ring with a 25.59-carat “pigeon’s blood” ruby, estimated at between $15 million and $20 million, according to Christie’s jewelry expert Rahul Kadakia. According to him, the pear-shaped “Briolette of India” diamond with a good 90 carats, which is stamped on a necklace made of countless small diamonds, is also exceptional.
“The last time Christie’s held an auction of this caliber was in 2011 when we sold the Elizabeth Taylor collection,” explained Kadakia. It raised 145 million dollars (132 million euros) in two days. This time, “in order not to have so many jewels on the market at the same time”, sales were stretched for a longer period.
The first auction round at Christie’s in Geneva on Wednesday raised $156 million (€142.35 million). The total surpassed the low estimate of $139 million, according to a broadcast.
According to Forbes, Heidi Horten left a fortune of US$ 2.9 billion. However, the origin of her husband’s fortune, who died in 1987 and owned one of the largest chains of department stores in Germany, has been the subject of criticism.
According to a historian’s report published in January 2022 and commissioned by the Horten Foundation, Helmut Horten was a member of the NSDAP for a long time. In 1936, three years after the Nazis seized power, he took over the textile department store Alsberg in Duisburg at the age of 27 after its Jewish owners fled.
He later took over other businesses that had previously been owned by Jews. He was therefore accused of profiting from the “Aryanization” of Jewish businesses during the Nazi era.
Pressure on the auction house to suspend the auction for further investigation has been building for days. “Do not reward those whose families grew rich with desperate Jews who were persecuted and threatened by the Nazis,” urged the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The American Jewish Committee requested that “the auction be suspended pending serious efforts to determine what part of this wealth came from Nazi victims” – and then returned to survivors and for educational programs. The umbrella organization for Jewish organizations in France simply called the auction “indecent”, especially as the proceeds go to a foundation “whose task is to preserve the name of an ex-Nazi for posterity”.
Christie’s said it approved the auction because “all proceeds from the auction will go to charity”. Additionally, according to the auction house, it intends to donate a “considerable sum” to Holocaust research and mediation.