The summer season marks the start of Monaco’s most prestigious auctions of the year, as the country hosts the sophisticated international collectors. The Hôtel des Ventes de Monte Carlo Auction House never skimps on the quality of their lots, but even their bar is going up a notch this July. HVMC will take over the Café de Paris from 18 to 21 July for a series of six exceptional sales that target the specialities of the season, including fine jewellery, watches and leather goods, archaeology and modern art.
The sales on 18 and 19 July highlight jewellery, with a total of 360 lots distributed over two sessions. Among the flagship lots is a white gold collar necklace set with round and shuttle diamonds and finished with larger pear diamonds, amounting to an eye-popping 76.44 carats.
Also of note is a white gold ring centred with an exceptional triangular tourmaline, weighing in at 13.44 carats. The stone, accompanied by its GIA certificate attesting to its greenish-blue colour, is surrounded by baguette diamonds arranged in a radial pattern.
As for designer jewellery, there is an exceptional René Boivin ring made from a drawing by Juliette Moutard, a goldsmith employed by Jeanne Boivin after the death of her husband. The ring is set with a large round diamond of approximately 9 carats and bears the mark of Boivin, and will be presented with a certificate from Madame Françoise Cailles dating from 1935.
The sales on 20 July will be devoted to luxury leather goods and watches. Hermès will be represented with a wide range of accessories, bags, porcelain and glasses, and will be joined by equally prestigious names such as Chanel, Prada, Céline and Bvlgari.
Hermés’ Birkin and Kelly models, unavoidable at auction, will be offered in several colours and materials, including an exceptional 1962 Kelly bag decorated with a reproduction of the painting Impossible Interviews-n ° 6 by the cartoonist Miguel Covarrubias. The work represents the ‘impossible interview’ between Greta Garbo and Calvin Coolidge (American president from 1923 to 1929), which appeared in the May 1932 issue of Vanity Fair.
The session dedicated to watchmaking will present a fine selection of pocket watches, vintage watches, clocks, and very beautiful timepieces from the biggest houses. Among them is an exceptional Celestial model, made in the great Patek Philippe tradition of astronomical watches and displaying a celestial map on the dial. In addition to telling the time, this marvel of engineering makes it possible to observe the exact configuration of the night sky in the northern hemisphere, with the apparent movement of the stars as well as the position of the moon and its phases during the lunar cycle.
Also of note is a Breguet Tourbillon Messidor watch for men. Made in 18k rose gold with a mechanical movement caliber B558SQ2, the skeleton dial allows for a full appreciation of the watch’s workings.
On 21 July, the auction will continue with a catalogue of archaeology. Most notable is a museum-worthy pair of solid gold torque bracelets dating from the Bronze Age, or nearly one thousand years before our era. Shaped as semicircles, the bracelets are formed in thick arcs finished with symmetrical flat scrolls. The shape is reminiscent of the famous torque bracelets, first created during the second millennium in Northern Europe before being adopted by the Celts.
Gold necklaces and bracelets were considered the ultimate symbol of princely power and had great significance for the Celts, who never imported jewellery from neighbouring cultures in order to strengthen their identity. Although several models following the same typology are found in museums today, the structure, aesthetics and quality of execution of this rare pair of bracelets far exceeds those known examples.
The sale series will close on 21 July with a sumptuous catalogue of modern art, particularly notable for its sculptures. HVMC is pleased to present a superb set of 71 Edgar Degas bronzes from a private European collection. This corpus of works includes busts, dancers, daily scenes and horses and is a very fine cross-section of the artist's repertoire.
Salvador Dalí will be represented with four large sculptures, including a Minotaur from 1981 and a test of the famous Rhinoceros Dressed in Lace. This work in question is the result of two obsessions of the Spanish Surrealist: the painting La Dentellière by Vermeer, and the rhinoceros horn, an ‘object’ whose perfection, curve and sexual symbolism captivated him. After visiting the Louvre to reproduce Vermeer's canvas and visiting the Vincennes zoo to admire the animal, Dalí produced his sculpture in 1956, a monumental copy of which is kept at Marbella.
All sales will take place at the Café de Paris, Salon Bellevue, from 18-21 July. For all information relating to the sanitary measures linked to the COVID-19, as well as the opening hours of the exhibitions, we invite you to visit the auction house's website.