Christie’s public sale home cancels second sale of jewels of billionaire widow Heidi Horten

The Christie’s public sale home has canceled its deliberate November sale of the second portion of the jewellery of Heidi Horten, whose assortment has been tied to wealth seized from Jews through the Holocaust.

The first sale netted $202 million, in line with the auctioneers.

The Austrian-born Horten, who died in 2022, was the widow of German division retailer magnate Helmut Horten, who started amassing his eventual billion-dollar fortune by buying previously Jewish-owned companies seized by Nazi authorities in Germany through the technique of “Aryanization.”

“Christie’s has taken the decision not to proceed with further sales of property from the Estate of Heidi Horten,” the public sale home stated in a press release Friday to French wire company Agence France-Presse. “The sale of the Heidi Horten jewelry collection has provoked intense scrutiny.” 

Holocaust survivors approve the transfer.

“We are glad that they recognized the great pain additional sales of Horten art and jewelry would cause Holocaust survivors,” survivor David Schaecter, president of Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA, instructed The New York Times.

The controversy surrounding the primary sale of knickknack led Christie’s so as to add disclaimers to the itemizing for the second sale, which continues to be up on their web site.

The disclaimers explains that “Mr. Horten, her first husband, passed away in 1987, leaving a significant inheritance to Mrs. Horten … The business practices of Mr. Horten during the Nazi era, when he purchased Jewish businesses sold under duress, are well documented.”

Christie’s additionally pledged to donate a part of its fee on the gross sales to Holocaust analysis and schooling.

The public response to the primary Horten sale additionally led the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel to cancel a joint occasion with Christie’s relating to artwork stolen by the Nazis.