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An exceptionally-rare blue diamond went beneath the hammer in Geneva late Tuesday, promoting for $21.5 million, Sotheby’s public sale home mentioned.
“The Mediterranean Blue”, a flowery vivid blue diamond weighing 10.3 carats with an estimated worth of $20 million, attracted an intense bidding battle.
Bidding started at 9 million Swiss francs ($10.8 million), with a fierce forwards and backwards earlier than the diamond was finally bought to a non-public US collector, whose title was not given, for 17.9 million francs ($21.5 million), Sotheby’s mentioned.
The Mediterranean Blue, which is a brand-new blue diamond just lately mined from the legendary Cullinan mines of South Africa, generated big pleasure inside the diamond business ever because it was first introduced in March, the public sale home mentioned.
Forward of its ultimate displaying in Geneva on Tuesday, it was unveiled as a part of a Sotheby’s debut exhibition in Abu Dhabi final month, the place it was showcased alongside seven different “extraordinary” diamonds and gems collectively value over $100 million.
“On the high of the rarity pyramid are blue diamonds,” Quig Bruning, head of jewels for Sotheby’s in North America, Europe and the Center East, mentioned on the Abu Dhabi present.
After serving as auctioneer at Tuesday’s occasion, he hailed the gem as “undoubtedly the defining stone of the season”, saying in a press release that it “ranks among the many high blue diamonds we have now bought”.
Tobias Kormind, head of Europe’s largest on-line diamond jeweller 77 Diamonds, was much less upbeat, describing the sale as “much less dazzling than anticipated”.
“The diamond did exceed its $20 million estimate, suggesting there was significant curiosity,” he acknowledged.
“However broader uncertainty, together with the continued US-China commerce tensions, might have dampened bidder confidence and muted what might have been a extra frenzied environment.”
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com