Christie’s 2025 holiday gift guide

A Børge Mogensen ‘Sleigh chair’

Evoking the sound of sleigh bells and long, wintry rides across a snow-covered landscape, this elegant chair, with its matching ottoman, was designed by the Danish furniture-maker Børge Mogensen. It was created in 1953 for an exhibition in Fredericia, Denmark, and is one of only five known to exist.

Mogensen was a mid-century modernist who favoured traditional crafts and natural materials. He is known for his egalitarian, stylish yet practical solutions to the economies of modern living, designing modular furniture that could be folded, slotted and compartmentalised. Whimsy was not usually his metier, making this ‘Sleigh chair’ an unexpected delight.

A diamond triple clip brooch and a Rolex Daytona ref. 6263

This diamond triple clip brooch from 1935 takes the form of two wild roses, each set throughout with round-, baguette- and cushion-shaped diamonds. The two single flower clips can be joined together to form one flowerhead cluster brooch if preferred. Wear with a black cocktail dress for maximum impact.

Each holiday season, Rolex used to a run a festive advertisement — a tradition that came to an end in the 1970s. The final ad ran with the tagline: ‘A Rolex for Christmas certainly raises the spirits.’

Around the same time, the company released what has gone on to become one of its most sought-after tool watches: the Daytona reference 6263. This particular model, from 1974, has several minuscule, but highly desirable, distinguishing features: tiny Greek ‘sigma’ letters appearing at six o’clock, which indicate that the baton numerals and hands are crafted from 18k white gold; the lettering ‘T SWISS T’, indicating that tritium is used in the glow-in-the-dark dial; and a black acrylic bezel and screw-down pushers, giving the watch a particularly rugged appearance.

Tibetan Suite Series No. 201 by Liu Kuo-Sung

In the summer of 2000, the renowned ink painter Liu Kuo-Sung was in Tibet to give a lecture. The Taipei-based artist was fast approaching his 70th birthday, but age didn’t prevent him from embarking on a trek to Everest Base Camp during the same trip. After several days’ ascent, Liu experienced the spectacular mountain scenery revealing itself before him. Sunlight illuminated certain peaks; clouds shrouded others. The overall effect was a sweeping vista that enraptured him.

Tibetan Suite Series No. 201 is one of a set of works that Liu was inspired to produce after the trek. His intricate method entailed painting on, creasing, and removing strands of fibre from both sides of his paper. The end result is an atmospheric image of snowy mountains, their topography captured through crisscrossing white lines set against the backdrop of a darkening sky.

A Pierre Sterlé cocktail ring and a limited-edition Shearling Retourné Kelly 35

The Parisian jewellery designer Pierre Sterlé is celebrated today for his creativity and exquisite craftsmanship. Born in 1905, he made his name in the 1940s, creating experimental pieces that would complement the high fashion of the era. His jewels often blend abstract and figurative elements, as well as precious and semi-precious stones.

Some pieces, such as this 1960s cocktail ring, also feature fringes of braided gold chains, a signature Sterlé motif known as cheveux d’ange (‘angel’s hair’), which he developed in 1957. The rectangular-shaped aquamarine at the centre of this ring weighs approximately 11.5 to 12 carats and is flanked by round diamonds and square and rectangular sapphires. The innovative design highlights Sterlé’s daring way with colour and proportion.

The Hermès Kelly handbag is an ageless fashion icon, made famous in the 1950s by the Hollywood star Grace Kelly, later Princess Grace of Monaco. Distinguished by its smart rhomboid profile, it comes in a range of sizes, from the petite 22 (denoting its length in centimetres) to the roomy 40, and an iridescent array of colours. The type of leather used also varies widely, with the fleecy, cuddly-chic Shearling — in a variant nicknamed the ‘Teddy Kelly’ — being particularly suited to this time of year. This limited-edition example uses the brand’s Fauve Veau Doblis suede, Ebène Barénia leather and palladium hardware to create a luxurious winter look.

An Elizabeth II silver ‘Lazy Susan’ centrepiece

For a perfectly arranged but low-key soirée, look no further than this elegant Lazy Susan, designed to make every party a stylish success. It was made by Nayler Brothers, the renowned London silversmiths, and sold at James Robinson Inc. in New York.

Popularised in the early 19th century by the third US president, Thomas Jefferson, the Lazy Susan saw an unexpected resurgence in Manhattan in the late 1950s. In a city where financial intrigue and high society collided over the dinner table, the Lazy Susan was the soul of discretion. No one needed to worry about the waiting staff overhearing confidences when guests could serve themselves by rotating the turntable.

A Josef Frank ‘Flora’ cabinet and a Tiffany & Co. silver menorah

This cabinet is designed by one of the fathers of Swedish modernism. Josef Frank was a successful architect and designer in Vienna, who moved to Sweden in 1933 to escape antisemitism. In Stockholm, he found a job designing textiles and furniture for Svenskt Tenn, subverting the firm’s austere rationalism with bold patterns and vibrant colour.

The ‘Flora’ cabinet is an early example of Frank’s design philosophy, one that advocated for a cosmopolitan, human-centred modernism. Frank believed that interiors should inspire and delight. It would be impossible to imagine Ikea or Marimekko without him.

From the extraordinary Judaica collection of Max N. Berry comes this silver menorah made by Tiffany & Co. Central to the celebrations of the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah is the display of a nine-branch candelabrum, which holds one candle for each night and a further ‘shamash’ candle to light the others. Berry’s memories of Hanukkah from every stage of his life give these objects a special meaning for him, which he has summed up as ‘the magic of candlelight, which grows each day of the holiday and adds a sense of warmth and palpable comfort to the beauty of the moment’.

Let’s Both Give It a Try by Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha’s emphatic artworks hide a myriad of contradictions. Take this pastel from 1976 executed in his trademark graphic style, which mirrors commercial design. At first glance, it appears to be a relatively straightforward statement of intent — ‘LET’S BOTH GIVE IT A TRY’ — but the American artist is a mischief-maker, who has fun with the relationship between text and images.

On the one hand, he treats the words as pictures, playing with line, font and colour; on the other, the reading of the statement never seems consistent with seeing the artwork. Out of context and floating in a cloudy ether, this is a puzzle that is impossible to solve. Ruscha has said that he has a deep respect for ‘things that are odd, for things which cannot be explained’. That disconnect places him in an illustrious canon dating back to the absurdist wordplay of the early modernists, such as Tristan Tzara and Marcel Duchamp.

Concetto spaziale, Attese by Lucio Fontana and a 30-million-year-old gogotte

For Lucio Fontana, the colour white represented unalloyed luminosity: in 1946, his White Manifesto set out the parameters for the Spatialist art movement he founded. Concetto spaziale, Attese, made around two decades later, started life as a canvas painted in crisp, wintry white. The artist then ruptured the colour’s serenity with two vertical slashes — his expression of ‘an endless void’ beyond.

‘I do not want to make a painting; I want to open up space, create a new dimension, tie in the cosmos,’ he once said. Soon after making Concetto spaziale, Attese, Fontana presented one of his final works — 20 slashed white canvases — at the 33rd Venice Biennale. The installation was awarded the festival’s Grand Prize for painting.

Gogottes might look like the work of a modern sculptor, but they were in fact formed by Mother Nature beneath the sandy soil of what is now Fontainebleau, south-east of Paris, some 30 million years ago. Unlike anything else in the natural world, these rare sandstone concretions of quartz and calcium dazzle like fresh snowfall. Each bulge and swirl is unique and took millennia to form. The Sun King, Louis XIV, loved gogottes so much that he dispatched search parties to excavate Fontainebleau. The best examples he used to decorate his fountains at Versailles, where they still stand today.

Christie’s Private Sales is a service for buying and selling fine art and objects outside of the auction room. Explore fine art, jewellery, handbags, watches and more, all ready to take home now. You can browse by category or discover something new in our thematic selling exhibitions Nordic Lights: Artists, Designers, Makers (until 12 December 2025), Attraverso / À Travers — Italian and French Art in Dialogue (until 15 December) and COLLECTOR/CONNOISSEUR The Max N. Berry Collections Selected Hanukkah Lamps (until 22 December)