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Two Exquisite Blue Diamonds Set to Captivate Bidders in Geneva | April 17, 2025 (0 comments)
GENEVA, Switzerland--Christie’s and Sotheby’s have each unveiled exceptional fancy vivid blue diamonds that will appear during the Geneva jewelry auctions in May.
The most valuable of the two is the “Golconda Blue.” At 23.24 carats it is the largest fancy vivid blue diamond to be offered at auction. Its estimate is $35 - 50 million.
It will the headline lot at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction on May 14 at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. The diamond is mounted in a contemporary ring by esteemed contemporary high jewelry artist, JAR.The pear-shaped diamond also boasts a provenance rooted in Indian royalty.
[The Golconda Blue diamond. Photo credit: Christie's]
Yeshwant Rao Holkar, the Maharaja of Indore and a member of the Holkar dynasty, was known—alongside his wife—for a lifestyle defined by elegance and cosmopolitan sophistication in the 1920s and ’30s.
The Golconda Blue
In 1913, his father acquired the famed Indore Pear diamonds from Chaumet. In 1923, during another visit to Chaumet, he commissioned a diamond bracelet set with his 23-carat pear-shaped Golconda blue diamond.
Yeshwant Rao Holkar appointed Mauboussin as his official jeweler in 1933. One of the pieces the French jewelry house created was an exceptional necklace that included both the Golconda Blue and the Indore Pears, worn by the Maharani of Indore memorialized in a portrait by Bernard Boutet de Monvel.
Yeshwant Rao Holkar also collaborated with other iconic jewelers, including Harry Winston. In 1946, Winston purchased the Indore Pears from the Maharaja, and the following year, in January 1947, he acquired this 23-carat blue diamond. Winston later set it in a brooch alongside a matching 23-carat white diamond, which he sold to the Maharaja of Baroda. The brooch was subsequently reacquired by Mr. Winston and resold as a newly designed jewel to its current owner.
More than a century later, this same blue diamond will appear at auction for the first time.
The Mediterranean Blue
Meanwhile, Sotheby’s will offer “The Mediterranean Blue,” a 10.3-carat fancy vivid blue diamond with a VS2 clarity grade, according to the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). It is also a Type IIb diamond, a classification which represents less than 0.5% of all diamonds, according to the auction house.
[The Mediterranean Blue diamond. Photo credit: Sotheby's]
The cushion-shaped modified brilliant gem will be the top lot of Sotheby's Geneva High Jewelry auction on May 13 with an estimate of about $20 million.
The Mediterranean Blue is the result of 31.94-carat rough diamond discovered in the Cullinan mine South Africa in 2023, Sotheby’s said. The creation of the cut-and-polished diamond was the result of a year of study followed by a planning and cutting process that took six months.
The two auction houses have yet to reveal their entire offerings for the May Geneva auctions.