Duchess Roxburghe's ruby and diamond earrings, sold for more than 10 times their estimated price at Sotheby's, Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The annual Sotheby‘s sale of “Magnificent Jewels” was an extraordinary event Tuesday evening 17 November in Geneva, reassuring investors that the jewelry market is alive and well, with sales close to the impressive CHF40 million of May 2009: CHF37 million, with sales spread across several lots. In May, one blue diamond alone sold for CHF10.4 million, accounting for over one-quarter of the auction value.
Several items were bought for sums dizzyingly higher than their estimates Tuesday night. Diamond rings in particular went for double their estimates, for the most part.
The November 2008 sale, at a point of great gloom over the global financial crisis, brought in CHF18 million and some of the top items were not sold because of bids that were too low for the sellers.
The top items Tuesday night included (from catalogue descriptions):
Update 18 November Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Anne-Sophie Pic, head chef at the Beau-Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne, has been given a prestigious second star by French-based Michelin Red Guides, whose new guide to Switzerland comes out 19 November. The Beau-Rivage is one of only thirteen 2-star restaurants in Switzerland. Pic leads the way for the Lake Geneva region, which continues to boast two of Switzerland’s three three-star restaurants, Philippe Rochat in Crissier, canton Vaud and Le Pont de Brent in Montreux, Vaud.
Swiss restaurants have a total of 101 stars, making it the country with the highest number of starred restaurants per inhabitant.
Michelin’s new guide to Tokyo is also out (it goes on sale in Europe only in February 2010). The city now has the highest number of 3-star restaurants in the world, with three. It also has more stars than any other city, 261, and Michelin refers to it as “world leader in gourmet dining.”
Two other restaurants which currently have one star are in line to receive a second star: Auberge de Floris in Anières, canton Geneva and Homann’s Restaurant in Samnaun, canton Graubuenden.
Michelin gave new single stars to three restaurants in Geneva, awarding them to chefs:
Nogles, Arizona, March 2007 (© Chris Maluszynski/Agence Vu)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Pont de la Machine in the centre of Geneva, not far from the Mont Blanc bridge, will for the next three months offer visitors the irony of a bridge as a showcase for walls that divide humanity. “Murs”, an extraordinary exhibit of large-scale photos of barriers taken by some of the world’s top photographers, opened Monday 9 November in Geneva. The show continues to 31 January 2010. The collection of images of life on both sides of walls that were erected for political reasons are striking, particularly at night or in rainy weather when their backlighting makes them stand out from the stream of people crossing the bridge.
Pedestrians entering the footbridge from the left bank of the Rhone first see the building of the Berlin wall: the exhibit’s opening was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of its fall. Monday, before the official opening, saw a typical crowd of people crossing the bridge, some on their cell phones with thoughts elsewhere and others with their eyes on the ground, concentrating on getting from point A to point B. All were obliged to confront the artwork because the 12 lightboxes that hold 24 large format images (200cm wide) printed on tarmac are laid out in such a way that people have to zigzag across the bridge.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – GaultMillau has awarded its coveted title of Swiss chef of the year 2010 to Andreas Caminada, the second time the chef has been given this distinction. Caminada tends the stoves at Schloss Schauenstein in Fuerstenau, Graubuenden, which has 19 points. He won the title in 2008 as well.
GaultMillau includes 816 restaurants in its 2010 Swiss guide, none of which have 20 points, but eight of which have 19 (five are in French-speaking Switzerland). The promising young chef of the year for French-speaking Switzerland is Pierrick Suter at the Hôtel de la Gare in Lucens, Vaud.
Links to other sites: Lake Geneva region tourism office, GaultMillau and Michelin restaurants list
by Jared Bloch
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Cinéma Verité Film Festival has, since 2007, pushed audiences to explore the connection between socially conscious filmmaking and social action. The foundation behind the festival offers a combination of documentary and feature film screening and public debate.The 6-8 October screenings this year, held in Geneva and in Paris, included a cross-section of films from around the world that were used to highlight the eight Millennium Development Goals embraced by the United Nations in 2000.
The screenings took place from Tuesday to Thursday at Geneva’s Arditi Wilsdorf theater. Genevalunch sampled four of the documentary presentations:
L’Appel de Diégoune, directed by Marc Decosse and Eric Dagostino, tells the story of a campaign to end the practice of female genital cutting in Senegal, and one village’s decision to abandon this tradition.
Artist's rendering of new museum (image: Canton Vaud)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Lausanne will have a new Beaux Arts (fine arts) museum, to be housed in the CFF engine house, next to the main train station. The building itself has nearly 9,000m2 of space and sits on a plot that is some 24,000m2. The museum is expected to open in 2014. The site was selected from 11 under consideration after voters in 2007 derailed a sleek modern lakefront project.
Bernard Fibicher, the museum’s director since June 2007, intends to put the accent on a museum that will be more easily accessible, physically but also in terms of the way works are presented, than the current home in the Place de Rumine
Stolen art poster, Interpol, June 2009 (click on image to view larger)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government said in a statement Monday that Switzerland is well represented among the 400 approved users of Interpol’s new secure online stolen art database. More than 800 searches were made in the first few weeks, with approved users including police, museum curators, collectors and gallery owners, although the database is open to any interested parties who can show why they want to undertake a search.
Hans Erni, age 100, in front of earlier self-portrait
Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Articulate, still handsome, far more interested in debating the state of the world than in basking in the recognition that has at last come to him: this is Hans Erni at the ripe age of 100. Visitors tend to walk up to him, awestruck by his age, and walk away from him having forgotten his age because he gives them too many other things to think about.
A career spanning 80 years, the globe – with peace an enduring theme
Erni is one of Switzerland’s finest 20th (and 21st) century artists, but he has only relatively recently been acknowledged as fully as he deserves. His career, spanning nearly 80 years, was celebrated in February with a major retrospective in Martigny at the Gianadda Foundation. The Kunstmuseum in Lucerne 24 May opened the first public museum showing of his work since 1979 with a collection that traces the development of the artist.
Erni was honoured in Geneva Saturday 6 June: his most recent project, a 60-metre peace fresco at the entrance to the United Nations building, the Palais des Nations, was unveiled at an outdoor ceremony open to the public. The year 2009 is a series of such events, throughout Switzerland – and Erni finds the energy to travel and participate in several of them.
Politics took their toll
It is not that Erni is an unknown artist: quite the opposite. He has a large popular following, his work is housed in the Hans Erni museum in Lucerne (an extension of the country’s most popular museum, the Transportation Museum) since 1979, and for decades he has been the guest of governments around the world.
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland – Starting today, 5 June, various towns at both ends of Lake Geneva, in-between and beyond are offering a variety of musical styles, mostly free of charge. Check out the Events section on GenevaLunch.com for details.
5-7 June: Sine Nomine classical music festival, Lausanne, Vaud
7 June: Jazz at the Place des Marronniers, Nyon, Vaud
18-21 June: Sierre Blues festival, Sierre
19-21 June: F’ête de la musique, Geneva
19-21 June: Village Festival, Latin music, Grand-Saconnex
16 June – 24 September: Lausanne estivale 2009, an all-summer long festival of music
