Giant diamonds expected to fetch millions during auctions next week
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HUGE yellow and blue diamonds are expected to fetch strong prices at Geneva jewelry auctions next week, auction houses said on Wednesday.
The “Graff Vivid Yellow,” star lot at Sotheby’s on Tuesday is a yellow diamond weighing 100.09 carats that was cut by the London-based top jeweller Laurence Graff.
“Once it gets to 100 carats it’s into the realm of extreme rarity,” David Bennett, chairman of Sotheby’s jewelry department for Europe and the Middle East said.
“It is this extraordinary deep daffodil yellow. It is a charming stone, full of life, full of color,” he said in an interview in the showroom where the jewels were displayed.
Sotheby’s estimates that the yellow, cushion-shaped diamond, whose owner is not being identified, will fetch US$15 million to US$25 million.
A white round diamond of 103.46 carats, also cut by Graff and described by Sotheby’s as one of the largest brilliant-cut diamonds in the world, is also going on the block with an estimate of US$3.5 million to US$5 million.
“It has the wow factor,” Bennett said of the stone mounted on a ring, which has toured the world to attract bidders. A smaller but stunning 31.34-carat white diamond, “The Victory Diamond,” which belonged to Florence Gould, daughter-in-law of the American railroad magnate Jay Gould, is estimated at US$5 million to US$8 million.
“She was one of the three or four greatest jewel collectors of the 20th century, alongside people like the Duchess of Windsor and Daisy Fellowes,” Bennett said, recalling the “high-society” ladies who frequented the French Riviera in the 1930s.
Sotheby’s disclosed in February that it had acquired the “Pink Star” diamond, which had fetched a world-record price of 76.3 million Swiss francs (then US$83 million) in November, after its buyer failed to pay up.
A blue diamond of 13.22 carats, described as the largest flawless fancy vivid blue diamond in the world, is the star lot at rival Christie’s sale on Wednesday. The pear-shaped stone is estimated at US$21 million to US$25 million.
“We are quite confident that it should sell toward the high end of the estimate or above,” said Jean-Marc Lunel, senior international specialist of Christie’s jewelry department.
“It is absolutely perfect, absolutely pure externally and internally. It is almost a dream,” he said.
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