Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer

Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer is the Swiss operation of Artcurial, the Paris auction house, and for a newcomer to Zürich it is worth knowing precisely because it does not run like a jewellery specialist. The core business is fine art: paintings, works on paper and sculpture, sold three times a year out of Basel and St Gallen. Watches and jewellery were added as their own department more recently, with a first dedicated watch sale in 2024, and it is that department, not a jewellery-only calendar, that will interest a reader shopping this category. The Zürich address, Kirchgasse 33 in the old town, is one of four Swiss locations alongside Basel, St Gallen and Geneva, and it functions mainly as a viewing point and consultation office rather than a full-time saleroom.

The house's own history page traces a fairly quick roll-up. Nicolas Beurret and Emmanuel Bailly founded Beurret & Bailly Auktionen in Basel in 2011. In January 2018 the firm merged with Markus Schöb's Galerie Widmer Auktionen, an Eastern Swiss art dealership founded in St Gallen back in 1977, which is where the Kirchgasse 33 premises and the Widmer name in the current title both come from. Then in 2023 Artcurial, the French group, took the business into its own network and it became Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer. A fourth office opened in Geneva in 2025. None of this reads as a company standing still, and the site's own recent press material backs that up: on 11 March 2026 a Patek Philippe reference 3940 from around 1985 sold for 546 000 CHF, a result the house calls a world record for that reference, and at the 24 June 2026 sale in Basel a Hans Arp sculpture made 698 638 CHF with premium while an F. P. Journe Octa Réserve de Marche watch made 202 688 CHF at the same house's dedicated Basel Watch Auction. Those are not vague claims about prestige, they are lots the house catalogued and settled, and they show the range: fine art and serious watches sit in the same auction weeks.

What buying here actually involves

An auction is a different transaction from a boutique purchase, and this is where an expat buyer needs the mechanics spelled out rather than assumed. You can bid in the room, submit a written bid, register a telephone bid, or bid online through connect.invaluable.com or the house's iOS and Android apps. Written and telephone bids both have the same cut-off, noon on the day before the sale, and a telephone bidder is called a few minutes before their lot comes up rather than left waiting on hold. If you are new to the house, expect to be asked for a copy of ID or financial references before you are allowed to bid at all, which is standard due diligence rather than anything specific to this house.

The fee structure is published rather than negotiated case by case, which matters if you are budgeting in a currency you did not grow up pricing things in. The buyer's premium is 25 percent of the hammer price, rising by another 3 percent if you win through an external online platform such as Drouot or Interencheres rather than the house's own channel. Swiss VAT of 8.1 percent then applies on top of that premium. All estimates and all payments are in Swiss francs only, so there is no ambiguity about which currency you owe. Settlement is due within 7 days, after which a monthly default interest of 1 percent applies, and objects left uncollected for more than two weeks attract a minimum storage charge of CHF 10 per lot per day. None of this is unusual for a European saleroom, but a lot of dealers never put the numbers on a page, and this one does.

For anyone who plans to leave Switzerland with what they buy, the export route is spelled out too: VAT already charged is refunded once you present the original, stamped export form from Swiss customs. Packing and onward shipping are arranged directly with a carrier and billed separately, so factor that cost in yourself rather than assuming it is bundled into the hammer price. There is no published guarantee, resizing service or after-sales workshop for jewellery bought at auction here, and the house's pages simply do not address it, so anyone planning to wear a ring bought this way should ask directly about resizing before bidding rather than assume a service that is not advertised.

Getting a piece looked at, and who this suits

If you have inherited or brought a piece of jewellery or a watch into Switzerland and want a sense of its value before deciding whether to sell or insure it, the house runs free, non-binding valuation days by appointment at any of its four Swiss addresses, or at your home. Contact details differ by office: the Basel and Zürich line is +41 61 312 32 00, St Gallen is +41 71 227 68 68 and Geneva is +41 79 541 61 85. In Zürich itself, the gallery keeps modest walk-in hours, normally Wednesday and Thursday from 12.30 to 17.00, and the site is blunt about it: contact them before you visit rather than assume the door will be open. Outside those two afternoons, everything runs by appointment, which suits a buyer who wants a proper consultation over one who wants to browse on a whim.

The site itself is available in German, French and English, which is not a given among Swiss auction houses and is a real convenience if German is not your working language. That trilingual setup, plus a published fee schedule and an export process spelled out for people who will not stay in Switzerland forever, is what makes this house a reasonable stop for an expat reader even though its bread and butter is paintings rather than rings. You will not find a dedicated engagement ring sale here, and the jewellery and watch lots sit alongside a much bigger fine art programme rather than forming a calendar of their own. What you get instead is a legitimate route to a piece with real provenance, bought at a price set in open competition rather than marked up at a counter, from a house that is transparent about what it will cost you on top of the hammer price.

The honest caveat is that Zürich is the smallest of the four addresses in terms of opening hours, so this is a house you plan a visit to rather than one you drop into. If that fits how you already shop, an auction is worth the extra step, since a lot in fine or antique jewellery is very often a design you would never find on a shelf, and this particular house lets you view it, understand its fee in advance, and if you are leaving the country later, reclaim the VAT on the way out.