Sotheby’s High Jewelry Sale Is Offering Up Slew of Collector-Worthy Pieces—Here Are Our Favorites
- Sotheby’s upcoming High Jewelry Sale in Geneva will feature the star of the show, the Mediterranean Blue, a 10.03-carat fancy vivid blue diamond expected to sell for $20 million.
Sotheby’s next jewelry auction wants to help you enter your blue period.
To be sure, the auction house’s High Jewelry Sale, taking place on Tuesday, May 13 in Geneva, will offer up a slew of gems certain to entice collectors—but there is one definitive headliner: the Mediterranean Blue , a 10.03-carat, fancy vivid blue stone. Expected to hammer down for $20 million (CHF 18 million), the ultra-rare gem has a Type IIb designation, a classification that includes less than 0.5 percent of all diamonds. The stunner also has the highest-possible color grading of a blue diamond, making it all the more lustworthy.
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The other gems on offer are no slouches—the Mediterranean Blue is in decidedly good company. A pair of unmounted D color and flawless cushion-shaped diamonds make up the sale’s Lot 587. With a $3.8 million to $4.8 million estimate, the stones weight 23.88 carats and 23.75 carats, respectively, and were cut from the same 108.36-carat rough. A 4.05-carat heart-shaped fancy blue diamond pendent necklace (about $1 million to $1.6 million) will also be on the block, as well as an 5.83-carat oval fancy light blue diamond with heart-shaped diamonds shoulders (about $900,000 to $1.2 million).
On a different side of the color wheel, yellow diamonds also make an appearance at the event. A pair of cut-cornered rectangular step-cut fancy intense yellow gems (weighing 14.15 carats and 14.01 carats, respectively) are expected to fetch between $545,000 to $750,000 at the sale. Meanwhile, a 16.28-carat fancy intense yellow diamond—expected to hammer down for between $290,000 and $363,000—will also be on the block later this month.
Sotheby’s has something special in store for collectors of all stripes this year. Later this month, the auction house is bringing 56 lots to the block from the vast art collection of Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III . The husband-and-wife duo had amassed quite a treasure trove, including a pair of Guardis and a portrait of a scholar by a teenage Gerrit Dou; the collection is expected to fetch from $80 million to $120 million. And if you’re a fan of Breguet watches, you’re in luck: The house is also putting on the largest auction of the brand’s timepieces in decades later this year. Better have your bids ready.
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