Christie’s: The results
A representative of Harry Winston sitting at the front of the auction room beat fierce competition from several telephone and online bidders, as well as other buyers in the room, to buy the 18.96-carat, VS1-clarity Pink Legacy diamond for $50.4 million. Immediately following the November 13 Magnificent Jewels sale, Harry Winston renamed the stone the Winston Pink Legacy. The gem, which hit the top end of its estimate, is mounted in a platinum ring and is internally pure.
“The sale result once again highlights that extremely rare and beautiful jewels can sell for record prices,” Francois Curiel, Christie’s chairman for Europe and Asia, told Rapaport Magazine in the auction room at Geneva’s Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues.
“The saturation of the pink color is optimal,” he added, referring to the even distribution of the color. “A 19-carat diamond of this quality is extremely rare.”
Vivid-colored diamonds are the most strongly saturated gems, displaying the best color tone. Most pink diamonds of this color weigh less than 1 carat, according to Christie’s. “This stone, for me, is the Leonardo Da Vinci of diamonds. I don’t think there is anything better,” Curiel told reporters.
An important Asian collector, bidding by telephone, was the direct under-bidder, said Christie’s auctioneer Rahul Kadakia after the semi-annual sale. “This is an important moment in jewelry history,” he declared.
Other star performers at the sale included two Cartier natural pearl and diamond necklaces, which fetched $1.1 million and $456,500 — well above their respective high estimates of $800,000 and $200,000 — underlining the strong demand for branded pearl jewelry.
An exceptionally rare, multi-gem Egyptian sautoir featuring old and rose-cut diamonds, dated 1924 and signed Van Cleef & Arpels Paris, sold for $4.3 million to a telephone buyer after fierce bidding; it beat its high estimate of $3 million.
Members of the crowd jostled to shake the hand of Harry Winston’s representative after the sale of the pink diamond, and the Christie’s cocktail party later was abuzz with talk of the record price.
Sotheby’s: The results
As bidding for the top lot in Sotheby’s November 14 sale edged to a close, you could have heard a pin drop in the auction room. A rapid-fire ping-pong battle between two telephone bidders had run out of steam, and both were taking additional time to make up their minds before making other offers at the Royal Jewels from the Bourbon Parma Family sale.
The lot in question was a pearl and diamond pendant that had belonged to Marie Antoinette. The contest between the potential buyers lasted for over 10 minutes in the packed auction room of the Mandarin Oriental — at one point rising swiftly by $1 million every bid — before one of them finally bought the pendant to a big round of applause.
The jewel went to an anonymous private buyer for a startling price of $36.2 million, a world record for a pearl, Sotheby’s said. The sum was a significant multiple of its nearly $2 million presale estimate, and was very much due to the pearl’s provenance.
“It is extremely difficult to calculate how much the provenance will add to the value of a piece of jewelry, and in this case, much of the price achieved for the pearl pendant was due to its story relating to Marie Antoinette,” Daniela Mascetti, Sotheby’s jewelry chairman for Europe, told reporters after the sale.
The story of Marie Antoinette’s jewels featured high drama, as the queen secretly sent them abroad in a wooden chest to her sister as she planned her escape from Paris. But King Louis XVI and his wife were arrested in 1792 when the French Revolution overthrew the monarchy, and were executed by guillotine the following year. Their only surviving daughter, Marie Therese, later retrieved the jewels in Vienna, and they were passed on through the duke of Parma’s line.
Another key reason for the high price of Marie Antoinette’s pendant was that it was fresh on the market after a long time in Italy’s royal Bourbon Parma family; the piece had not been seen in public for more than 200 years. The pendant was suspended from a necklace, a separate lot in the sale, which garnered $2.3 million.
Auctioneer David Bennett received a pair of white gloves after the sale, symbolizing that every lot had been sold — a rare occurrence.
The auction achieved a total of $53.2 million, more than the historic $50 million sale of jewels from the collection of Wallis Simpson, duchess of Windsor, which took place in Geneva in 1987.
Also in the Bourbon Parma sale was a pair of diamond pendant earrings dating from the first half of the 19th century, which fetched $729,715, well above their high estimate of $250,000. Several decorative orders and medals eclipsed their estimates as well, reinforcing the importance of provenance in determining value. An early 20th-century ruby and diamond ring sold for $32,266, far surpassing its high estimate of $8,000; it was the engagement ring of Archduchess Marie Anne of Austria, who was engaged to Prince Elie de Bourbon Parme in 1902.
The Bourbon Parma auction wasn’t the only Sotheby’s jewelry sale in November, though it may have been the most dramatic. The Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels sale, which took place a day later, brought in a total of $59.9 million and starred a slew of colored stones. The leading lot was a 21.19-carat, fancy-light-pink diamond ring that topped its high estimate at $7.4 million.
Image: Sotheby's; Marie Antoinette's pearl and diamond pendant from the Bourbon Parma family collection.Article from the Rapaport Magazine - January 2019. To subscribe click here.