Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels Sale Sets Record: Triumph of the Pink

It was the triumph of the pink at the Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels auction this week. The New York arm of the auction house’s jewelry department’s spring Magnificent Jewels sale totaled $65million. It was originally expected to fetch around $50 million in total sales.

[Observer] The Perfect Pink (lot 2103) was only estimated between $14 million and $19 million at Sotheby’s “Jewels: The Hong Kong Sale” in 2010, but it fetched a whopping $23.2 million after four buyers went head to head for it. The 14.23-carat diamond is among the rarest and most expensive in its class, along with the Vivid Pink (a cushion-cut 5-carat stone, sold for $10.7 million in 2009), the Rose of Dubai (a pear-shaped 25-carat stone, sold for $6 million in 2005), and the Agra (a cushion-cut 32.24-carat stone, sold for $6.9 million in 1990)

Laurence Graff, founder of our friends Graff Diamonds, has bought a number of high profile stones at auction. Notably, he nabbed the Wittelsbach-Graff, a 31-carat deep-blue internally flawless diamond for $23.4 million at in 2008 when it was known simply as the Wittelsbach Blue. The sale set the highest record for the time. Today, the stone is valued at $80 million, after Mr. Graff reportedly sold it in 2011 to the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Chalifa, for that sum.