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The Hutton-Mdivani necklace.  UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $27.44 million.

The world’s greatest jadeite bead necklace comes up at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on April 7.  The Hutton-Mdivani necklace is estimated to sell for more than $12.8 million US.  Formerly in the collection of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton its provenance spans members of western nobility and Imperial China.  The most important piece of jadeite jewellery known comprises 27 gigantic beads of magnificent green colour, excellent translucency, extremely fine texture and majestic proportions. 

The Cartier archive records the beads being in their possession in 1933 when an innovative clasp was designed especially for the Hutton family. It was presented as a wedding gift that year to Barbara Hutton from her father on the occasion of her marriage to Prince Mdivani.  To fashion a strand of matching jadeite beads, all the beads must be carved from the same boulder and as many as three times the desired number of beads are often needed from which to select the most suitable ones. With the immense wastage involved, jadeite bead necklaces rank among the most valuable and sought-after forms of jadeite jewellery.

Prior to the sale it will be showcased in travelling exhibitions in Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Kaohsiung before going on display in Hong Kong.

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $27.44 MILLION US

AN IRISH GOTHIC REVIVAL WHITE MARBLE PANEL
CIRCA 1840, by repute removed from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh (£600-800) Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014

A c1840 Gothic Revival panel from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh is among the more surprising lots at an Interiors sale at Christie’s South Kensington on March 18. Carved on both sides as two connecting scrolls Christie’s estimate it at £600-800.  The catholic cathedral in Armagh was designed by two architects, as work was suspended in the mid-1840’s due to the famine. The lower half was designed in 1838 in the English Perpendicular Style by Thomas Duff the Newry. The Upper half was designed in 1853 in the French Decorated Gothic Style by J.J. McCarthy of Dublin.  The cathedral was dedicated in 1873.  Christie’s say the rood screen from which this section of panelling is thought to originate was destroyed when the cathedral was remodelled in 1980 along with the High Altar designed by Italian sculptor Cesare Aureli (1844-1923).

The auction will feature the collection of celebrated interior designer Tessa Kennedy,  best known for designing the Rivoli Bar at the Ritz which was reinstated in 2001 and for which she was awarded Designer of the Year. She has been an international decorator to stars for the past 50 years with clients including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, George Harrison, Pierce Brosnan, corporate clients like De Beers and world renowned hotels like Claridges and The Berkeley.  The collection features furniture from her Knightsbridge apartment and film tokens like Marlon Brandon’s buckskin jacket from the film The Missouri Breaks.

A GEORGE IV PARCEL GILT OAK HALF-TESTER BED
CIRCA 1830, IN THE MANNER OF WILLIAM PORDEN (£4,000-6,000) Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014

MARLON BRANDO’S BUFF BUCKSKIN JACKET FROM THE MISSOURI BREAKS
1976 (£1,500-2,500). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014.

A PAIR OF FRENCH ORMOLU WALL TROPHIES
OF LOUIS XV STYLE, LATE 19TH CENTURY (£2,500-4,000). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014.

The British Guiana One-Cent Magenta.  UPDATE: IT MADE A WORLD RECORD $9.5 MILLION.

THE rarest and most famous stamp in the world – unseen in public since 1986 – comes up at a dedicated evening sale at Sotheby’s in New York on June 17.  The legendary and unique British Guiana One-Cent Magenta is estimated at $10-20 million.  This would mark a new world auction record for a stamp.

On offer from the estate of John du Pont, who purchased it in 1980, it has not been seen publicly since 1986 when it was exhibited at  the Ameripex ’86 International Stamp Show in Chicago.   du Pont, heir to a chemical industry fortune and an avid collector, bought it for  $935,000 in 1980. The stamp will travel this spring to locations including London and Hong Kong, before returning to New York for exhibition in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning 14 June. It was  rediscovered by a 12-year-old Scottish boy living in South America in 1873, and from there passing through some of the most important stamp collections ever assembled.

David Redden, Director of Special Projects and Worldwide Chairman of Sotheby’s Books Department, commented: “I have been with Sotheby’s all my working life, but before I knew about the world’s greatest works of art, before I knew about the Mona Lisa or Chartres Cathedral I knew about the British Guiana. For me, as a schoolboy stamp collector, it was a magical object, the very definition of rarity and value, unobtainable rarity and extraordinary value. That schoolboy of long ago would be bemused and astonished to think that he would one day, years later, be temporary guardian of such a world treasure.”

In 1852, British Guiana began receiving regular postage stamps manufactured in England by Waterlow & Sons. But in 1856, a shipment of stamps was delayed, which threatened a disruption of postal service throughout British Guiana. The postmaster turned to the printers of the local Royal Gazette newspaper, and commissioned a contingency supply of postage stamps: the one-cent magenta, a four-cent magenta, and a four-cent blue. The sole-surviving example of the one-cent magenta was first rediscovered not far from where it was initially purchased. In 1873, L. Vernon Vaughan, a 12-year-old Scottish schoolboy living with his family in British Guiana, found the stamp among a group of family papers.

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR A RECORD BREAKING $9.5 MILLION.