Displaying items by tag: Jewels

The blue bloods are selling their jewels.

At Christie’s and Bonhams auctions in December, pearls formerly belonging to Queen Isabella II of Spain, and Kashmir sapphires from an European princess are going under the hammer.

The natural colored pearls (pictured below), headlining Christie’s Important Jewels auction on December 2 in London, were originally collected for Marie Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, wife of King Ferdinand VII and Queen Isabella II’s mother.

The earliest known example of Mughal jade; spectacularly large spinels inscribed with the names of emperors from the Mughal treasuries; a jewelled gold tiger’s head finial from the throne of the famed Tipu Sultan of Mysore and a dazzling brooch inspired by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes made in Paris in 1910 are among the treasures on public display for the first time in the UK, as part of the V&A’s new exhibition Bejewelled Treasures: The Al Thani Collection.

Sotheby’s will offer the 12.03 carat Blue Moon Diamond, among the largest known fancy vivid blue diamonds at part of its Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels in Geneva on November 11.

A blue diamond is created when boron is mixed with carbon during the gem’s formation. Graded Fancy Vivid Blue – the highest possible colour grading for blue diamonds, the cushion brilliant-cut stone has been declared Internally Flawless by the GIA and carried an estimate of $ 35-55 million.

A new exhibition at the Cloisters in Manhattan, "Treasures and Talismans: Rings From the Griffin Collection," put together by C. Griffith Mann, curator of the Department of Medieval Art and the Cloisters, explores the subtle meanings behind beloved pieces of jewelry.

A number of ancient and medieval rings, on long-term loan to the museum, are shown in a wider historical and cultural context in the exhibition. Displayed alongside the jewels is a curated selection of paintings and sculptures borrowed from the museum's Greek and Roman Art, European Paintings, and Robert Lehman Collection.

More than 200 lots of diamonds, rare gemstones, and signed designer jewels brought $27.6 million at Christie’s New York sale of Important Jewels on June 16.

The top lot, a cushion-cut Kashmir sapphire of 21.71 carats, realized $4.2 million. Signed by Cartier, flanked on both sides by trapeze-shaped diamonds, and mounted in platinum, the ring was part of the collection of Margaret Adderley Kelly, which saw a 100% sell-through totaling just shy of $10 million.

A dazzling array of Art Deco jewels is set to headline Christie’s sale of Important Jewels in New York on June 16.

The top lot of the auction is an Art Deco diamond pendant necklace suspending a D-color, internally flawless diamond of 16.24 carats that is estimated to achieve between $1.6 million and $2 million.

Sotheby’s Jewels and Noble Jewels sale in Geneva raised a total of CHF 149.85 million (US$ 160.91 million) well in excess of its pre-sale estimate of CHF 87 million with 94 percent of the lots sold.

The result was partly attributable to the setting of a new world record for a ruby, with the "Sunrise Ruby," a 25.59-carat Burmese stone set with diamonds by Cartier, which sold for CHF 28.3 million ($30.3 million), more than double of its CHF 11.7-17.5 million estimate. The price also established a new record both for any ruby per carat and for any stone by Cartier.

In 1943, the Allied team known as the Monuments Men were instrumental in recovering roughly 3,500 artworks that were confiscated by the Nazis during World War II and stashed hidden in salt mines for the intended purpose of going toward Adolf Hitler's proposed Führermuseum in Linz.

Among those artistic treasures were about 250 of the finest jewels, decorative objects and paintings collected by Austria’s Baron and Baroness Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild, which include an Art Deco emerald and diamond brooch that the Baron gave the Baroness on their 25th wedding anniversary.

Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale achieved its target of $42.0 million on April 14, led by a fancy pink diamond that fetched $5.8 million, the auction house said.

The 5.29-carat bauble, of an intense purplish pink hue, sold to a buyer identified only as “U.S. trade” and came in at $1.1 million per carat.

Other diamonds fetching high prices included a pear-shaped potentially internally flawless diamond pendant of 25.49 carats, by Graff ($3.4 million) and a circular-cut fancy gray-blue diamond of 5.04 carats ($2.3 million).

For almost a century, Milanese jeweler Buccellatihas kept the art of the Italian Renaissance at the core of their design philosophy, but with the opening of their Madison Avenue flagship on March 12, the house’s designers have found themselves dipping into a new creative pool: Impressionism.

Entitled "Timeless Blue," a capsule of one-of-a-kind jewels has been created in response to masterpieces by French, American and Russian masters Claude Monet, Pierre Bonnard, Winslow Homer, Mikhail Larionov and Odilon Redon.