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| September/October 2006 |
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Christie’s Auctions At 15-Year High Christie’s auction house reported in October its highest jewelry sales for a single week in 15 years. October 10-11 saw four separate jewelry auctions in New York City, which netted total sales of $49 million. The most highly publicized of those auctions was “Magnificant Jewels from the Collection of Ellen Barkin,” which alone counted for $20.4 million of the total and 103 of the 434 lots. The remaining three auctions — Magnificent Jewels, An Exceptional Collection of Art Nouveau Jewels, and Van Cleef & Arpels: A Centennial Tribute, Part I — which were all held on October 11, made up the remaining $28.6 million. The two highest-value items at the auctions were, predictably, diamonds. The most expensive was a 51.08-carat loose diamond of D color and VVS1 clarity, which sold for $3.2 million. The second was a diamond ring with an oval diamond, also D color of VVS1 clarity, weighing 22.76 carats. The highest-value items featuring colored gemstones was a jadeite and diamond necklace, created specifically for the Van Cleef & Arpels auction by Van Cleef & Arpels. The Art Deco-inspired necklace had an “imperial” green jadeite disc in the shape of a bi, surrounded by pavé diamonds with a diamond drop. Made in the Paris studio of Van Cleef & Arpels, the piece reportedly took 250 working hours to create. It sold for $755,200; the pre-auction estimate was not disclosed. At the Ellen Barkin auction, the highest-value colored stone item was a pair of topaz, ruby, and diamond ear pendants made by Joel Arthur Rosenthal of the Paris-based jeweler JAR; they went for $710,400, more than ten times the pre-auction estimate. An emerald bead necklace that previously belonged to Doris Duke (sold at auction by Christie’s only two years ago) went for $553,600, nearly double the estimated value. Other notable colored stone sales over the two-day period were a three-strand natural pearl necklace that went for $755,200; a two-strand natural pearl necklace that went for $475,200; and a cushion-cut, 6.77-carat Burmese ruby that went for $452,800, or $66,800 per carat.
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