A uncommon 37-carat sq. emerald owned by the Aga Khan fetched almost $9 million at public sale in Geneva on Tuesday, turning into the most costly inexperienced stone on the planet.
Offered by Christie’s, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can be worn as a pendant, dethrones a jewel from the well-known Italian luxurious model Bulgari, which Richard Burton gave as a marriage present to fellow actress Elizabeth Taylor, as essentially the most treasured emerald .
In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-shaped diamonds, platinum and 18k yellow gold for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.
Dyer then auctioned off the emerald to lift cash for animals in 1969.
Serendipitously, this occurred at Christie’s first sale of its variety in Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva, with the emerald returning for its one hundred and tenth version this 12 months.
It was bought by jeweler Van Cleef and Arpels earlier than passing, a number of years later, into the palms of US-based luxurious jeweler and Swiss watch producer Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds”.
“Emeralds are all the craze proper now and this one ticks all of the containers,” mentioned Max Fawcett, Christie’s head of jewelery for Europe, the Center East and Africa (EMEA).
“We’d see an emerald of this high quality on the market as soon as each 5 – 6 years.”
Additionally studded with diamonds, the earlier report holder was offered for US$6.5 million at an public sale of a part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor’s famend jewellery assortment in New York.
