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August 24, 2021
A 24.45-carat, internally flawless, heart-shaped diamond fetched $2.01 million at Christie’s Summer Sparkle sale, narrowly missing the record for the highest-valued jewel ever sold online. Christie’s had established that record in June 2020 when a 28.86-carat, D-color, emerald-cut diamond achieved $2.11 million.
The heart-shaped stunner, which came into the auction with a pre-sale estimate of $1.55 million to $2.55 million, was designated as Lot #1 in Christie’s second iteration of Jewels Online: Summer Sparkle. In the lead-up to the sale, Christie’s had promoted the sale’s top lot as the “highest valued jewel ever offered in an online sale at Christie’s.” The record holder from 2020 had entered its auction with a pre-sale estimate of $1 million to $2 million.
The top lot of the 2021 Summer Sparkle sale is set as a platinum pendant and surrounded by internally flawless pear-shaped brilliant-cut diamonds weighing 1.37 carats. The heart-shaped center stone belongs to the rare Type IIa category. These diamonds are the most chemically pure and characterized by their exceptional transparency.
Featuring 51 lots, the sale celebrated a wide variety of diamonds, from colorless to colorful.
One of the most colorful was “The Summer Sunrise,” a fancy vivid, orange-yellow, round-cornered rectangular modified brilliant-cut diamond weighing 9.83 carats. The Summer Sunrise was scooped up for $810,000, just above the pre-sale high estimate of $800,000. Set in a platinum ring and framed by triangular-shaped diamonds, the center stone boasts a clarity rating of VS1.
Other diamonds in the sale spanned a wide variety of colors, including pinks, greens, browns and yellows.
Overall, the August 4 – 18 online sale raked in $5.13 million.
Credits: Images courtesy of Christie’s.
