Sotheby’s “A Marvelous Journey: The Collection of Maurice Tempelsman” auction will feature a range of objects belonging to Tempelsman, a diamond dealer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and final companion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. It will take place June 24 in New York.
New York—Later this month, Sotheby’s will offer a collection of jewelry, gold boxes, and other objects that belonged to Belgian-American businessman and diamond magnate Maurice Tempelsman, who died in August 2025 at age 95.
The sale, “A Marvelous Journey,” features a range of items assembled over Tempelsman’s lifetime of global travel, reflecting his “exceptional range and curiosity,” Sotheby’s said.
Among the most outstanding objects in the sale is a gold-mounted “Steinkabinett” box circa 1770 that the auction house said is “a consummate expression of the Enlightenment’s union of scientific inquiry and luxury craftsmanship.”
It is estimated to sell for $600,000 to $800,000.
The box is one of only 10 that Christian Gottlieb Stiehl, an 18th-century master goldsmith in Dresden, Germany, made in his decades-long career.
A rare gold and hardstone “Steinkabinett” box made by Christian Gottlieb Stiehl around 1770 (est. $600,000 to $800,000)
Four are held in permanent museum collections, making any appearance on the open market a rare event, Sotheby’s said.
The Steinkabinett box that belonged to Tempelsman last appeared at auction in Paris in 1906, and it was documented once as a black-and-white illustration in 1935.
It entered the Tempelsman collection in the 1960s and has not been seen publicly since.
“To have a Stiehl Steinkabinett of this quality and condition reappear in public after nearly a century is a true discovery. It is not only an object of breathtaking beauty, but a masterpiece rooted in history and science that transcends the boundaries of any single collecting category,” said Alexandria Starp, Sotheby’s head of Vertu and Gold Boxes.
Forget-me-nots, one of the flowers seen on the lid, were associated with loyalty and faithfulness in the Saxon court tradition, the auction house said.
Engraved numbers above each hardstone panel correspond to a handwritten bilingual booklet—written in both French, the official court language, and German Kurrent script—that is concealed within a secret sliding compartment in the base, activated by pressing one of the opal inlays.
Its surfaces, which appear near seamless, are inlaid in Zellenmosaik, a technique of “extreme precision” in which finely polished hardstones such as agates, carnelians, sardonyx, white opal, and petrified wood are set à jour within gold cloisonné borders less than a millimeter wide.
The lid features inlaid roses, carnations, and forget-me-nots in lapis lazuli.
Included is a handwritten bilingual booklet that lists every stone on the box and its place of origin.
“[It is] entirely characteristic of an era when the desire to understand the natural world and the desire to beautify it were one and the same impulse, combined with a level of technical mastery that remains unparalleled today,” Sotheby’s said.
This gold armlet, fashioned in the form of a coiled serpent, is a refined example of a type worn high on the upper arm in late Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, Sotheby’s said.
Tempelsman’s collection also includes an Egyptian gold snake armlet dating to the Roman Period (1st century B.C. - 1st century A.D.) that is estimated to sell for $20,000 to $30,000.
Related stories will be right here …
Tempelsman was an entrepreneur, civic leader, and collector whose eye was formed by decades of travel, scholarship, and genuine aesthetic pleasure, Sotheby’s said.
He was born in 1929 and raised in the diamond trading hub of Antwerp. His family fled to the United States when the Nazis invaded Belgium in 1940.
As a young man, Tempelsman worked with his father as a diamond merchant in New York City. He grew focused on building relationships with African diamond suppliers and became increasingly involved in the diamond trade in Africa.
In 1984, he became the chief executive of Lazare Kaplan International, the largest diamond company in the United States.
Tempelsman was also a steadfast supporter of Nelson Mandela, as well as a generous philanthropist who served on the boards of the Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, among others.
Later in his life, his longtime friend Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis became an intimate partner with whom he shared a love of art, antiques, music, and literature until her death in 1994.
Works of personal significance, including gifts from her, are featured in the sale.
Among them is a Cartier Tank wristwatch she gave him as a birthday gift, featuring an engraving on caseback in her handwriting that reads, “For Maurice Love J 8/26/1985.”
The watch is estimated to sell for $10,000 to $15,000.
An engraved Cartier Tank wristwatch gifted to Tempelsman by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1985
There is also a Greek Alabaster head of a woman that Onassis bequeathed him in her will.
In addition to gold boxes and jewelry, the auction will feature fine art, antiquities, and objects of vertu.
“Maurice Tempelsman was a collector of extraordinary breadth and genuine intellectual seriousness. What strikes you, looking at this collection as a whole, is how naturally it coheres, not around a single period or category, but around a sensibility,” said Dennis Harrington, Sotheby’s head of European furniture.
“Every object in this collection reflects a man who looked carefully, collected with real conviction, and lived with beautiful things in a way that enriched everyone around him. It is a privilege to bring his collection to market and to share the story of his remarkable life with collectors around the world.”
“A Marvelous Journey: The Collection of Maurice Tempelsman” will take place at Sotheby’s New York on June 24.
