GENEVA (AP) – A ruby ring and a diamond necklace were below their pre-sale estimates at a Christie’s auction Wednesday of a vast jewelry collection of an Austrian heiress bought with money from a Nazi-era retail empire. Was. era in Germany.
The auction was criticized by Jewish groups because of the Nazi history of the collection.
The auction house defended the sale of nearly 700 pieces of jewelry, saying the proceeds were going to charitable causes including the Vienna Art Museum and medical research.
The collection belonged to Heidi Horten, whose German husband built a retail empire in the 1930s. She died last year.
Advocacy groups protecting the rights of Holocaust survivors and victims urged Christie’s not to sell.
The nearly 26-carat “sunrise ruby” — which Horton bought in 2015 for the equivalent of about $30 million — went on Wednesday for just 13 million Swiss francs (about $14.6 million), including fees and “buyer’s premium.” The pre-sale estimate was for it to fetch 14 million to 18 million francs.
Earlier, the 90-carat “Briolet of India” diamond – the centerpiece of a necklace set with smaller diamonds – sold for 6.3 million francs ($7 million), including fees. Its pre-sale estimate range was for 9 million to 14 million francs.
The buyers of the two-star items were not immediately identified.
In total, Christie’s said Wednesday’s sale – the first in-person portion of the auction that was already taking place online this month – brought in $156 million, higher than the low estimate of bringing in $139 million in the day’s event.
The sale includes sapphires, emeralds, pearls, diamonds and more.
The final stage is set for Friday, but the top lots were up for bidding on Wednesday.
An employee of Sotheby’s auction house holds the ‘Sunrise Ruby’ ring, an approximately 25.59-carat pigeon’s blood-colored Myanmar ruby, during a photocall in London on April 8, 2015. (Alistair Grant / AP)
Christie’s rejected calls from some Jewish groups to withdraw the sale. It acknowledged that Heidi Horten received a “significant inheritance” from her husband, Helmut Horten, who died in 1987. He bought Jewish businesses “sold under duress” during the Nazi era to build a retail empire. Christie said that his actions were “well documented”.
Thousands of Jewish-owned retail stores were “Aryanized” under the Nazis, and in Germany in the 1930s the values of Jewish holdings declined as a result of boycott measures, propaganda attacks, and other pressure from the authorities. Many Jews did not receive any compensation.
Businessmen like Horton were able to take advantage. He made most of his wealth after the war, but his department store brand was born in the Nazi era.
Christie’s said all the jewelry was bought over more than 50 years, dating back to the early 1970s, more than a quarter-century after the Nazis were driven from power at the end of World War II. The auction house said it took over the collection on the understanding that all proceeds would go to charitable causes.
David Schachter, president of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA, said the group had taken note of Christie’s explanation, but added that it “undoubtedly trivializes the Holocaust to use money brutally extracted from the Jewish people in barbaric conditions”. – Conditions that people barely understand today – in order to support the chosen ‘charitable cause’ of the profiteer.
“Mr. Horton’s fate cannot be divorced from the murder of six million Jewish people, including one and a half million children,” Schechter said in a statement emailed by the group’s attorney. He will forever wear the blood of the Jewish victims of the Shoah around his neck or on his hands.”
