A rare diamond was bought at auction for $44 million

Audrey Hepburn’s pearls are waiting for their buyer

In Geneva, a rare blue diamond went under the hammer for $44 million. Auction house Christie’s said the sale made the Bleu Royal the most expensive gemstone sold at auction this year. The jewelry will be transferred from one private collection to another for the first time in 40 years.

The rare diamond went on sale in Geneva on Tuesday, November 7th. The 17.61-carat Bleu Royal is believed to be the largest blue diamond to be offered for sale.

The bidding, according to CBS News, lasted seven minutes between three potential buyers, but the diamond was bought by an anonymous person for $44 million, including taxes and fees.

“We are very pleased,” said Max Fawcett, head of the auction house’s jewelry department in Geneva. The gem, he noted, sold for nearly $2.5 million per carat, making it “the most expensive jewelry lot sold in all of 2023.”

The pear-shaped blue diamond on the ring has been in a private collection for decades. Before the auction, Christie’s head of international jewelry, Rahul Kadakia, highlighted the unusual color of the gemstone. He noted that many modern colored diamonds had modified cuts to improve color. But this is not the case with Bleu Royal: “It is the best in its class, and its cut is an indicator.”

It is noted that unusual bright blue diamonds weighing more than 10 carats are extremely rare. Since Christie’s was founded in 1766, only three of these stones have been offered for sale – all within the last 13 years.

One of them was the Oppenheimer Blue, which sold for $57.5 million at auction in 2016 and is the only diamond Christie’s has ever sold for that much.

Rival auction house Sotheby’s in the UK sold another blue diamond, the 15-carat De Beers Cullinan Blue, in 2022 for just over $57 million.

A separate online jewelry sale will run until November 16th. Up for sale will be Audrey Hepburn’s pearl necklace, which she selected from a selection offered by Austro-Hungarian jeweler Furst and then returned with a signed photograph. Initial price for European collectors is 20 thousand dollars.

In a separate sale of Christie’s Passion for Time watches, it was reported that the watch worn by Marlon Brando in the film Apocalypse Now was sold on November 6th. They were valued at 5 million to start the ransom. The Rolex GMT-Master, created in 1972, features an engraving made by Brando himself. The Oscar-winning actor wrote “M. Brando” on their reverse side. Marlon Brando gave the watch to his adopted daughter Petra Brando-Corval in 1995, who then gave it to her husband in 2003 as a wedding gift. The watch was purchased for the first time at auction in 2019 for $1.95 million.

“The engraving is visible beautifully, so we can imagine that this watch has been worn, but not too much,” said Elie Fion, a watch specialist at Christie’s Geneva.