A 90-year-old bracelet studded with diamonds and gemstones has been sold at an online auction for more than a million dollars.
The so-called “Tutti Frutti” bracelet of the French company Cartier, which was manufactured around 1930, was finally sold for 1.34 million dollars, about 1.3 million euros, after a competition of five bidders, announced the auction house Sotheby’s in New York.
That is significantly more than the previously estimated price of up to 800,000 dollars. “We are thrilled with the result,” said Frank Everett of Sotheby’s. “This is almost certainly the highest price ever paid for jewels at an online auction.”
The bracelet was owned by an American family for decades. The Tutti-Frutti style of the House of Cartier, inspired by Asian jewelry design, came about a hundred years ago. The daring combination of rubies, emeralds and sapphires with diamonds and platinum is “the perfect marriage of East and West,” Everett said.
Until a few years ago, the industry assumed that buyers of exclusive jewelry were reluctant to offer online. The record auction of the bracelet proves the opposite.
