Christie's Stream Family Collection led by 49.91-carat diamond ring and Fabergé treasures

The ring itself is the kind of trophy that stops bidders in their tracks. IDEX describes it as very light green-yellow, VS1 clarity and old European brilliant-cut, a combination that gives the stone both scale and character. Christie’s has paired it with a Tiffany & Co. Art Deco emerald and diamond bracelet estimated at $300,000 to $500,000 and a Cartier coral, diamond and gold bracelet estimated at $50,000 to $70,000, a reminder that signed jewels from the Art Deco era still carry real weight with buyers who want instant recognition and documented craftsmanship. A Fabergé gem-set silver rhinoceros automaton, circa 1900, is also estimated at $300,000 to $500,000.

The collection itself is unusually deep, with almost 400 jewelry and other objects and a strong emphasis on Fabergé, Cartier and Tiffany. Christie’s calls it one of the world’s finest groups of Fabergé, and says much of it had remained unseen for more than a century. That kind of pedigree matters. Collectors are not just buying stones and settings, they are buying continuity, rarity and the kind of provenance that can be traced through generations and institutions.

The story began with Matilda Geddings Gray, the Louisiana oil heiress who took over her family’s enterprises in 1921 and started acquiring Fabergé in 1933, when the name was still little known in the United States. Over nearly four decades, her holdings came to include four Imperial eggs and the Lilies of the Valley Basket, widely regarded as Fabergé’s floral masterpiece. After Gray’s death in 1971, the collection passed to the foundation she established and was later shown at the New Orleans Museum of Art before going on long-term loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her niece, Matilda Gray Stream, who inherited and stewarded the legacy, died on October 14, 2023, at age 99.