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RAPAPORT... Sotheby's Hong Kong sale of magnificent jewels and jadeite achieved $106,615,865 and was 82.2 percent sold by lot. The top lot was the Hutton-Mdivani necklace (pictured), a highly important jadeite bead, ruby and diamond necklace singed Cartier, circa 1933, which sold for $27,441,026 to The Cartier Collection. Sotheby's confirmed the sales price was a world record for any Cartier jewel. The Red Emperor, a Burmese ruby and diamond necklace that was set with 60 pigeon's blood rubies totaling 104.51 carats sold for $9,923,077, setting a record for any ruby and diamond necklace, according to Sotheby's.  The sale also set a world record price for a 29.62-carat, oval Burmese ruby and diamond ring, mounted by Cartier, which sold for $7,338,462. The sale also featured a 30.57-carat, D, flawless unmounted brilliant-cut stone that sold for $6,548,718 and a 102.61-carat, cushion-shaped royal blue sapphire and diamond necklace that sold for $4,179,487. Quek Chin Yeow, the deputy chairman and head of the jewelry department for Sotheby’s Asia, said, “Sotheby’s offering of the greatest jadeite bead necklace in the world, The Hutton-Mdivani Necklace, in today’s magnificent jewels and jadeite sale enters the annals of auction history as one of the most thrilling saleroom competitions ever. Eight bidders in the room and on the phones competed for 20 minutes driving the price to double the estimate and achieving a world auction record for any jadeite jewelry and a Cartier jewel of HKD 214 million / $27.44 million, a price which fully lives up to the storied past of this captivating work of art, which had caused enormous excitement among jewelry cognoscenti.”
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