Record sales have been achieved in the first lots of an auction in Geneva of a treasure trove of jewellery that once belonged to an Austrian woman whose husband made his fortune in part by buying department stores at deeply discounted prices from Jews who sold under duress during the Third Reich, Bloomberg reports.
The Christie’s auctions of Heidi Horten’s jewellery – a third, online, auction was to end today – went ahead in the face of vigorous criticism by Jewish groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a US-based Jewish human rights group.
However, Christie’s – which acknowledged the origin of Horten’s wealth – said in a statement that all the objects up for auction were purchased after the 1970s and that ‘all of the estate’s proceeds from the sale of this jewellery collection will be donated to a foundation that supports philanthropic causes, including medical research, children’s welfare, and access to the arts, pursuant to Mrs Horten’s wishes’.
It added: ‘Christie’s has also committed to donate a significant portion of our commission to organisations that contribute to vitally important Holocaust research and education. It will be up to these organisations, if they so wish, to communicate about these donations.’
The first – live – auctions on 10 and 12 May pushed the running total to 176 million Swiss francs.
According to Bloomberg, the previous record was set in 2011, when a series of auctions of the late actress Elizabeth Taylor’s jewels made about US$137 million at Christie’s.
Horten died last year aged 81, shortly after opening an eponymous museum in Vienna. She derived her wealth from her late husband, Helmut, who made his fortune in part by buying department stores at deeply discounted prices from Jews who sold under duress during the Third Reich.
Yonathan Arfi, chairman of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, said: ‘This auction is doubly indecent: the funds that made it possible to acquire these jewels are partly the result of the Aryanization of Jewish property carried out by Nazi Germany.’
According to the BBC, the Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded that Christie’s not go ahead with the sale.
In a letter to the auction house, the Centre said: The Hortens’ billions used to build this collection were also the sum of profits from Nazi “aryanization” of Jewish department stores.’
[Image: https://hortencollection.com/en/news/2022/in-memoriam-heidi-goess-horten]