The Private Collection of Joan Rivers | Christie's

we are in one of the Christie's warehouses where a bunch of my mom's stuff has been laid out I'm just sorry my mother isn't here because I think one of her dreams was to be left alone in a Christie's warehouse with a satchel and nobody supervising her fortune she's not here to do that so let's just talk about some of her stuff this is what the pieces I very much wanted to keep I mean the workmanship is phenomenal and you look at the the work and the pearls and the little diamonds and it's just phenomenal she collected three main things and that was art jewelry and Faberge it appealed to the beauty and the craftsmanship that she's so adored my mother mother came from very well-to-do Russian family and then came to United staes they had leave everything behind but her mother always aspired to having that very grand lifestyle back and I lived well my grandfather was a doctor they lived very nicely but not I think the kind of lifestyle that she had as a child in Russia and the thing that was so funny about my mom was she felt with Faberge so much if it was given as gifts and personal items within the Russian aristocracy that she felt she should put our family photos in them which is hilarious so here I am right before I left for college in a Faberge frame my godparents Vincent Price and Carl Brown also in a Faberge frame this one is phenomenal this one has the royal cypher emcee she loved them always loved the provenance she loved the stories behind the different pieces to be able to say so-and-so wore this or this was gifted to so-and-so always made a piece more significant to her she loved the romance of the pieces I think the piece and the sale that I have the biggest memory connected to is the Winston pin because I remember as a child my mom sitting and drawing it out it started with just a few little stones and then they would get more stones they would add and add and I remember my mom sitting on her dressing room floor playing with it and making little pieces of paper in this shape of different stones and adding to it as they got different things so there's a lot of memory for me in that particular pin she loved setting a beautiful table I think it goes back to gracious living she loved entertaining it just was one of those things that gave her great enjoyment she was not a minimalist by any stretch when she set a table she appreciated when she went to people's homes it was a very sleek modern looking tables that is not what you would get at her house you know she believed for is more and more is better her apartment was amazing she used to sit in her apartment was how Marie Antoinette would have lived if she had had money in taste our library was very English the rest of her apartment was very French she loved fine French furniture she loved Russian works of art I think that just what she was attracted to I don't know if I'm a conscious level it was because I was her roots my mother I think would be thrilled that these things will be loved by someone else as much as she loved them and not just you know sitting in a vault somewhere not being used and loved it's very hard to part with all of this and these were very very difficult decisions for me to make and there is not one piece in this collection that I would not take back but I know in her heart and I know in my heart I'm doing the right thing because she always said her things were meant to be used and loved and they should go to places where they're going to be used in

Channel: Christie's

Views: 788,721

Keywords: Joan Rivers, private collection, Melissa Rivers, faberge, art collection, jewellery, jewels, jewellery collection, The Collection of Joan Rivers, The Private Collection of Joan Rivers

Id: SBbKpN7cHxQ

Length: 5min 11sec (311 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 08 2016