by Cecile Mantovani and Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) – “The Rock”, the largest white diamond ever sold at auction, will go under the hammer in Geneva on May 11, in a sale at Christie’s that features two diamonds weighing more than 200 carats each.
A 228.31-carat pear-shaped gem, roughly the size of a golf ball, ‘The Rock’ is expected to fetch $30 million (€28 million), the auctioneer has said.
“A lot of times with these big stones, you sacrifice some of the shape in order to keep the weight,” Max Fawcett, head of the jewelry department at Christie’s in Geneva, told Reuters.
“Now it is a perfectly symmetrical pear shape and … one of the rarest gemstones ever sold at auction,” he added.
The prices of stones are notably driven by the sanctions imposed on Russia, the world’s largest producer of diamonds by volume.
Mined in South Africa, “The Rock” was worn by its former owner on a Cartier necklace.
The previous auction record for a white diamond was a 163.41 carat gem sold in 2017.
Christie’s is also selling a 205.07-carat yellow cushion-shaped diamond dubbed ‘The Red Cross Diamond’ next week as an unspecified portion of the sale will be donated to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), according to an ICRC spokesman.
The precious stone, whose base is adorned with a faceted Maltese cross, was first sold by Christie’s in 1918, at an auction in London, to contribute to the war effort.
The profit from this sale, ie 10,000 pounds (now 11,691 euros), helped the British Red Cross Society.
(Written by Emma Farge, French version Elena Vardon, edited by Sophie Louet)