What can you buy in Lake Geneva auctions? Lots of jewelry, fine arts and Asian art from rich collectors of course, but also even more unusual objects.
For its summer sale, DognyAuction exhibited from May 30 to June 2, a fragment of the Nantan meteorite, 4.5 billion years old, the age of the solar system (between 20,000 and 30,000 CHF) . The fragment, made of iron (92%) and nickel, measures approximately 41 cm and weighs 105 kilos. It is an intense gray-black color, “punctuated with a few spots of rusty patina”, specifies the description.
The piece of this celestial body would come from a meteorite that fell in 1516 in the Chinese region of Nantan. It comes from a private collector, who acquired it in 2006 from a specialized store in Lausanne.
Other lots on sale in June also include a study by Auguste Renoir and a never-exhibited oil on canvas by Gustave Loiseau, as well as very rare headdresses and sculptures from the Brazilian Amazon. They are part of the collection of Carlos Michaud, a deaf and mute explorer from Lausanne. He had dismantled the headdresses for transport, then reassembled them in Switzerland based on his drawings and notes.
Sale on June 4 at the auction from 10 a.m. and on https://dognyauction.ch/
