Geneva’s high jewelry auction season has a clear frontrunner this May. Sotheby’s flagship High Jewelry Sale is back with a lineup that spans a 6.03-carat blue diamond from South Africa, a 102-carat sapphire, jewels co-designed by Rihanna, and a fresh partnership with DeBeers that is already producing results.
Rihanna co-designed a jewelry collection for Chopard in 2017 as a tribute to her Barbadian heritage and its Carnival spirit, and it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival that year. Several pieces from that collection are now entering the auction market for the first time. A bib-style necklace set with tsavorite and spessartite garnets, pink and yellow sapphires, blue topazes, turquoises, and brilliant-cut diamonds, estimated at CHF 200,000–300,000 CHF (US$ 260,000–380,000), is sold together with matching pendent earrings.
A separate bracelet from the same collection is also on offer. These pieces exude her vibrant personality, expressed stunningly with gemstones and design expertise by Chopard. The brand has a long record with high-profile collaborative collections, and pieces with verified red carpet provenance have shown consistent buyer interest across major auction houses.
A fancy vivid blue diamond from the Cullinan mine in South Africa is leading the sale with an estimate of CHF 7.2–9.6 million (US$ 9–12 million). The stone weighs 6.03 carats, is internally flawless, and is appearing at auction for the first time. Cullinan is the same mine that produced the 3,106-carat rough diamond now cut into the two largest stones in the British Crown Jewels. A blue diamond of this quality and size from that source does not come to market often.
A matched pair of unmounted brilliant-cut white diamonds forms another headline entry, estimated at CHF 2.2–2.9 million (US$ 2.8–3.5 million). Each stone weighs 18.38 carats, both are D color, one is flawless and the other internally flawless, and both are new to auction. DeBeers mined these stones from Botswana’s Jwaneng mine as part of a new exclusive collaboration with Sotheby’s, designed to bring significant new diamonds to market through flagship auctions.
Jwaneng is one of the most valuable diamond mines in the world by revenue, and this marks a deliberate shift by DeBeers toward the price transparency and global reach that public auctions offer over private sales. A 28.88-carat stone from the same collaboration, The Jwaneng 28.88, sold last week in Hong Kong for US$ 2.7 million, giving Geneva buyers a live benchmark to work from.
Colored diamonds make up a wide and varied section of the sale. A 4.12-carat internally flawless fancy pink diamond, estimated at CHF 800,000–1.6 million (US$ 1–2 million), will direct a portion of its proceeds to Akshaya Patra, the NGO that runs the world’s largest school meal programme, feeding over two million children in India every day.
Another two pink diamonds from the DeBeers-Sotheby’s collaboration, weighing 1.06 carats and 1.10 carats respectively, will see part of their proceeds going to The Peace Parks Foundation, a conservation charity co-founded by the late President Nelson Mandela. A 14.60-carat fancy brownish orangy pink diamond is estimated at CHF 650,000–950,000 ( US$ 800,000–1.2 million), and a 10.19-carat fancy vivid yellow diamond set as a ring with trapeze-shaped flanking stones carries an estimate of CHF 320,000–480,000 (US$ 390,000–600,000).
Natural colored diamonds have consistently outperformed white diamonds at resale over the past decade, making this collection quite tempting.
Colombian emeralds, Ceylon sapphires, and Burmese rubies form the backbone of the colored gemstone section. A 1950s Colombian emerald and diamond necklace, estimated at CHF 800,000–1.6 million (US$ 1–2 million), is built around a cabochon emerald suspending a graduated fringe of drop-shaped emeralds, the largest of which weighs nearly 58 carats. A step-cut Colombian emerald ring of 14.19 carats with no clarity enhancement is estimated at CHF 280,000–480,000 (US$ 300,000–600,000).
Titled “The Peacock of Ceylon,” a 102.40-carat cushion-shaped sapphire with no heat treatment is one of the largest to come to auction in recent memory, estimated at CHF 1–1.5 million (US$ 1.3–1.9 million). Heat treatment is widely used in the sapphire trade to improve color, which means an untreated stone of this size commands a significant premium.
Signed pieces from the historic jewelry houses bring their own draw. A Cartier Art Deco-inspired sapphire and diamond bracelet from around 1950, estimated at CHF 400,000–630,000 (US$ 500,000–800,000), features a 7.04-carat Kashmir sapphire. Kashmir sapphires were mined in a short window between the 1880s and early 1900s before the main deposits ran out, making them among the rarest gemstones available anywhere.
A ruby and diamond cravate necklace by Lacloche Frères from 1928, estimated at CHF 160,000–280,000 (US$ 200,000–350,000), was formerly owned by an important European collector. Cravate necklaces were a technically demanding style of the late 1920s and early 1930s, made to replicate the look and movement of a fabric tie entirely in metal and stone, and well-preserved examples from named houses are increasingly hard to find. A matching pair of pendant earclips is estimated at CHF 40,000–80,000 (US$ 50,000–100,000). A Boucheron emerald and diamond pendant from the early 20th century carries an estimate of CHF 65,000–95,000 (US$ 85,000–120,000).
Three pieces from the personal collection of Enrica Pessina Invernizzi, wife of Milanese entrepreneur and philanthropist Romeo Invernizzi, also feature in the sale. A pair of natural pearl and diamond earrings by Faraone from the 1970s is estimated at US$ 24,000–36,000. An articulated ruby, onyx, and diamond bracelet by Bulgari from the 1980s carries an estimate of US$ 45,000–65,000. A Bulgari gold, emerald and diamond Serpenti wristwatch from 1976 is estimated at US$ 230,000–480,000.
Sotheby’s Geneva High Jewelry Sale takes place this May. Across the highlighted lots, the sale spans a 6.03-carat Cullinan blue diamond, a 102-carat untreated Ceylon sapphire, Rihanna’s Cannes-debuted Chopard pieces, a 1928 Lacloche cravate necklace, and new DeBeers stones from a partnership that produced its first result in Hong Kong just last week. Total high estimates across the key lots run well into the tens of millions of dollars. Results from this sale will serve as live pricing data for colored diamonds, untreated sapphires, and signed Art Deco jewels across the broader market for the rest of the year.
