The paddles went up in a frenzy at jewelry auctions in 2006 — and there’s no end in sight.
It’s been a sellers’ market, and high-profile auctions put jewels on the block that actress Ellen Barkin received as gifts from her former husband, billionaire financier Ronald O. Perelman; the gems of McDonald’s heiress Joan B. Kroc, and rare antique pieces.
The high selling prices — $4.1 million for a pearl and diamond parure, for example — are mirroring the record-breaking year in contemporary art sales, said François Curiel, chairman of Christie’s Europe and head of jewelry for the auction house. Last month, Gustav Klimt’s portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II sold for a record $87.9 million.
“What we’re seeing is an explosion in the market, especially for artist bijoux,” Curiel said. In that domain, JAR — an acronym for Joel Arthur Rosenthal — is one of the brightest stars. The Harvard-educated jeweler makes an estimated 80 pieces a year but has as many as 1,000 clients waiting. So the excitement generated by the Barkin sale, which included 17 JAR creations among the impressive offering of 102 jewels, was understandable. Overall, the sale brought $20 million; $15 million had been expected.
“More and more private collectors attend the sales because of the rare artworks and jewels one is able to find in our sale rooms,” Curiel said. “As with every other sector in the art world, the new economies, particularly China, India and Russia, have pushed prices for jewelry up to a whole new level….With stocks, oil prices and the general economy on an upward trend, there is renewed confidence in the gem and jewelry world. What’s great about our industry is that there is plenty of room for growth.”
Christie’s has been feeling the growth already. The auction house this year has brought in $321.3 million from jewelry sales, compared with last year’s $278.7 million. The firm still has four important jewelry sales this month, including the sale of gems from Hélène Arpels, the estranged wife of Louis Arpels of Van Cleef & Arpels fame.
Sotheby’s worldwide jewelry total is $180.6 million. The figure does not include the firm’s most notable jewelry sale, the New York Magnificent Jewelry Sale, and the sale of a collection of 19th-century Italian jewelry from Judith H. Siegel, which takes place this month.
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“It’s the strongest year [for jewelry auctions] that we’ve seen in the past 10 to 12 years,” said Gary Schuler, director of Sotheby’s Jewelry, who said next year is sure to bring some exciting sales, too. Sotheby’s has such a strong jewelry clientele that last year the auction house launched a retail venture called Sotheby’s Diamonds. Schuler said people are not only buying diamonds and jewelry for pleasure but for investment, as well.
“It’s another asset in people’s portfolios,” he said. “People are diversifying their investments.”
Schuler said antique jewels have particular resonance in today’s market, noting the Siegel sale of 150 Castellani and Giuliano Italian Renaissance revival jewelry, which is rife with classical characters and motifs such as Bacchus and the Greek key.
And the estate business is growing alongside auctions. Elizabeth Doyle, president of the 10-year-old Manhattan estate jewelry firm Doyle and Doyle, said her clients have a particular interest in Etruscan revival and antique pieces.
“People are so bombarded with product and brands that they’re getting sick of following the trend that everyone’s doing,” Doyle said, adding that her business has seen a marked increase this year. “At an auction or with estate, it’s a specific type of jewelry, but it’s one of a kind and only one person can get it. You want to find and you want to win that piece.”
Doyle is working on an estate-inspired jewelry line under the Doyle and Doyle name, and is contemplating opening more stores.
“There aren’t a lot of new designers out there,” said Lee Siegelson, president and owner of Siegelson, a third-generation New York estate jeweler. “In a luxury market, [consumers] want things that aren’t in the marketplace. Whether Ellen Barkin’s JAR was [the jeweler’s] best or highest quality or not, those pieces from the Barkin sale were so valuable because of their rarity.”
The growth at auction parallels similar good fortunes for high jewelry houses in general. Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Boucheron all have reported historically high sales of their most expensive baubles, often more than $1 million, with demand often exceeding supply.
At this fall’s Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris, Cartier president Bernard Fornas reported competition between clients to buy pieces from the new high jewelry collection, including many confections over the million-dollar mark and several running above that.
“Top pieces are becoming rarer,” explained Frédéric Chambre, vice president of Pierre Bergé & Associés auction house in Paris. “The market is very healthy right now, but it’s also become very selective. Only exceptional pieces are selling. Art Deco from big houses [like] Cartier to Van Cleef and especially artist jewelry is what is most sought after. But bijoux from the Seventies and Eighties, even if they come from a big house, won’t sell.”
Chambre cited Rene Boivin, Georges Fouquet, Jean Després, Raymond Templier and Suzanne Belperron as the most coveted Art Deco masters at auction.
Ralph Esmerian, a fourth-generation fine jewelry dealer who in April acquired Fred Leighton with lending partner Global Asset Based Finance Group, a division of Merrill Lynch, said, “We live in a world where everyone loves to have names attached to things. When there is an auction that is associated with the names of the estates, it always attracts more attention than private collections or anonymous [sellers]. When you have a big name in the society pages like Ellen Barkin and Ronald Perelman, it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, a double whammy.’ It’s a concerted effort to have an impact on the market….It sparked an interest in jewelry as a whole, giving credibility to the marketplace. It gives people the impetus to go to Wal-Mart, their local discount jeweler or Cartier or Fred Leighton to buy jewelry and remember jewelry again.”