The pendant was sold at Sotheby's Geneva in November 2018. I remember that some of us watched the auction online and witnessed a fierce bidding from two collectors until the pendant was finally sold for CHF 36,427,000 – a new record for a natural pearl.




The controversial Austrian billionaire Heidi Goess-Horten, heiress to her late (first) husband's department store business (founded on aryanization in Nazi Germany), received an order in Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia, Austria today. She honoured the occasion with wearing what I think was her acquisition last November.





It's not the first famous jewel in her possession: Helmut Horten presented the Wittelsbach Diamond to her at their wedding in 1966. The diamond was sold to Laurence Graff in 2008 – and later recut.