Bleu Royal Sells for US$43.8 Million, Making it One of the Most Expensive

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An exceptionally rare blue gem became one of the most expensive diamonds sold by Christie’s when it went under the hammer in Geneva on Tuesday. 

An unidentified buyer paid CHF 39,505 million (US$43.8 million) for the pear-shaped Bleu Royal, as the gem is known, placing it among five most expensive fancy blue diamonds sold at auction.

Weighing 17.61 carats, the diamond is the largest internally flawless fancy vivid blue gem to appear for sale in auction history It had been expected to fetch between US$35 million and US$50 million as part of a Christie’s jewels auction at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues. 

Bidding for the diamond—the 87th and final lot in the sale—began at 5:45 p.m. CET, with an opening bid of CHF19 million. A mix of online and phone bids quickly saw the price progress to CHF30 million. After a pause, the competition heated back up as only a few bidders remained in the action, trading paddles until an anonymous buyer made the final offer at CHF 34 million, which brought the hammer down on the sale after less than 10 minutes of high-stakes bidding. The final price, including fees, makes the Bleu Royal one of the top-10 most expensive jewels sold at Christie’s.

Described by the auction house as being cut and polished into a perfectly symmetrical pear shape, combined with a rich vivid blue color and flawless purity, this diamond is among the rarest to have been unearthed in modern history.

Bleu Royal remained part of an important, and anonymous, private collection for the past 50 years. This is the first time the stone—set in a ring flanked by a pair of pear brilliant-cut diamonds of 3.12 and 3.07 carats—was sold at auction. The ring (U.S. size 7 ¾) has a gross weight of 14.2 grams. 

“This is a true miracle of nature,” Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s international head of jewelry, said in a news release. “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 colored diamonds have increased exponentially in recent years. Fancy vivid blue diamonds weighing more than 10 carats are exceptionally rare. 

Since Christie’s was founded in 1766, only three such stones have appeared for sale—all in the last 13 years: the Bulgari Blue fetched nearly US$15.8 million in 2010; the Winston Blue realized US$23.8 million in 2014; and the Oppenheimer Blue sold in 2016 for US$57.5 million, a world record for a fancy blue diamond.

Forming at extreme depths reaching 410 miles (660 km) or more—four times deeper than most diamonds—blue diamonds are among the rarest gems on Earth. They owe their color to the element boron, held in the floors of ancient sunken oceanic tectonic plates that lie deep inside the Earth’s mantle. Only a handful of places on the planet are known to hold blue diamonds.

“What makes Bleu Royal so rare and special is its size. At 17.6 carats, it’s the largest of its kind. The color is very rich naturally, and it is internally flawless as best as can be,” Kadakia said. 

Geneva is currently the epicenter of the auction world for jewels, as on Monday Phillips completed a jewelry sale marking the expansion of its jewels department worldwide. The auction showcased an array of treasures, headlined by a fancy intense pink diamond of 20.19 carats—the fourth-largest of this type of gem to grace an auction—which achieved CHF11.9 million, with fees.

In total, the Christie’s sale earned CHF69.6 million, including…