Bleu Royal, largest internally flawless fancy vivid blue diamond, to appear at Geneva auction

The gem will be presented at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction in Geneva in November.

• Shubham
• 18 September, 2023

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By: Shubham Ghosh

BLEU Royal, the largest internally flawless fancy vivid blue gem ever to appear for sale in an auction, is set to be the leading attraction of the Magnificent Jewels auction at Christie’s Geneva on November 7.

The diamond, weighing 17.61 carats and cut and polished into a perfectly symmetrical pear combined with a rich vivid blue colour and impeccable purity, is amongst the rarest to have been unearthed (estimate $35-50 million or £28-40 million). Bleu Royal is part of a private collection for the past half a century and this is the first time that the stone, set in a ring, will be up for sale at auction.

“This is a true miracle of nature,” Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s International Head of Jewellery, said.

“Over our 257-year long history Christie’s has had the privilege of offering the world’s rarest gems at auction, and Bleu Royal continues this tradition. We are proud to offer collectors the opportunity to own
a diamond fit for Royalty.”

Driven by collector demand and an increasingly limited supply, prices for top-quality coloured diamonds have increased exponentially in recent years.

In the saleroom, Fancy Vivid Blue diamonds over 10 carats are virtually unheard of and in over 250 years of auction history at Christie’s, only three such stones have ever appeared for sale. They are:

❖ The Bulgari Blue 10.95 carats sold for $15,762,500 (£12.7 million) New York 20/10/2010
❖ The Winston Blue 13.22 carats sold for $23,795,372 (£19.2 million) Geneva 14/05/2014
❖ The Oppenheimer Blue 14.62 carats sold for $57,541,779 (£46.4 million) Geneva 18/05/2016

In November 2016, AFP reported about a rare blue diamond being sold at an auction in Geneva for just over $17 million.

The 8.01-carat “Sky Blue” diamond in a Cartier setting was snapped up for $17.1 million (£13.7 million), a hike of 33 percent on the $12.8 million it sold for in 2012, said the auction house’s international jewellery division director David Bennett, the AFP report added.