Christie’s has announced the return of The Ocean Dream to auction, one of the most significant gemstone offerings the house has brought to Geneva in recent memory. On May 13, 2026, the auction house will offer the diamond at its Magnificent Jewels sale at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva, with an estimate of CHF 7,000,000 to CHF 10,000,000.
Weighing 5.50 carats and cut into a triangular form, The Ocean Dream carries a colour grade, fancy vivid blue-green, that the GIA has never assigned to another diamond of this size in its history of certification dating back to 1931. It is quite a classification record held by a single stone.
Christie’s Geneva Magnificent Jewels sale has spent years seeing the finest coloured stones in the world change hands. The Ocean Dream last sold at that very sale in May 2014, going for CHF 7.7 million. It now returns for only the second time in its recorded history, and the market it is returning to looks very different from the one it left.
Coloured diamond collecting has grown remarkably since 2014. A new generation of buyers from Asia and the Middle East has brought competition to the very top of the market, and the stones that have benefited most are the ones with credentials that cannot be replicated. Fancy vivid is the GIA’s highest colour grade for diamonds, and blue-green as a primary colour is rarer still, the result of a very specific combination of natural radiation and crystal structure that the earth produces only under extraordinary conditions, and at this size and depth of colour, has produced just once.
The Ocean Dream was a rough stone found in Central Africa in the 1990s, weighing 11.70 carats originally. Cut into its distinctive triangular shape, it was certified as type Ia, a classification that places it among the purest form of natural diamond. Type Ia stones are known to develop particularly vivid colour when the conditions deep within the earth are right.
The Ocean Dream first came to public attention in 2003, when the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. organised Splendor of Diamonds, a landmark exhibition held in The Harry Winston Gallery. Eight of the world’s most extraordinary diamonds were displayed together for the first time, representing a full spectrum of colour, red, orange, yellow, pink, blue, blue-green, and white. The Ocean Dream was among them, described by the Smithsonian as one of the rarest diamonds known, with no record of any other diamond of this colour and size.
Eight diamonds in total were presented at the exhibition, all discovered after 1980: the 203.04-carat De Beers Millennium Star, an unnamed diamond of 103 carats, the 101.29-carat Allnatt, the 59.60-carat Steinmetz Pink, the 27.64-carat Heart of Eternity, the 5.54-carat Pumpkin Diamond, The Ocean Dream at 5.50 carats, and the 5.11-carat Moussaieff Red. That every one of those diamonds was discovered after 1980 reflects just how young the serious study and collection of fancy coloured diamonds actually is.
Max Fawcett, Global Head of Christie’s Jewellery, said: “The Ocean Dream is a gemstone of rare distinction, returning to auction for only the second time in its history. Celebrated by the Smithsonian Institution as one of the eight rarest diamonds in the world, it stands as the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond ever recorded. An exceptional jewel of profound rarity and allure, The Ocean Dream is a highlight not to be missed, with previews taking place in Bangkok and Hong Kong, ahead of the auction in Geneva this May.”
Previews will be held in Bangkok and Hong Kong before the stone arrives in Geneva for the May 13 sale. Its estimate of CHF 7,000,000 to CHF 10,000,000 opens at its 2014 hammer price. With its GIA certification, its Smithsonian exhibition history, and its standing as the only diamond of its kind ever recorded, The Ocean Dream arrives at auction with a history and a set of credentials that very few lots anywhere in the world can match.
