Sotheby’s New York auction on Tuesday (December 5) saw higher than expected prices achieved for several rare blue diamonds and gemstones, Rough & Polished reports. Among them was an emerald-cut, 5.69-carat, fancy vivid blue, VVS1-clarity diamond ring, which sold for $15.1 million. Sotheby’s sold a total of $54 million worth of jewelry in the auction.
Other highlights included a pear-shaped, 2.05-carat, fancy intense blue, internally flawless diamond ring ($2.7 million); a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet featuring 193.73 carats of blue stones ($3.1 million); and a sapphire-and-diamond necklace-bracelet combination by Harry Winston ($1.9 million).
Sotheby’s jewelry-division chair Gary Schuler said after the auction: “The market continues to show its strength in colored stones, with today’s results driven by intense competition for important colored diamonds, sapphires and emeralds in particular”.