Diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones are immortal symbols of wealth and luxury. They are credited with magical properties, passed on from generation to generation, and the powers that be even collect whole collections of jewelry with precious stones, the cost of which reaches astronomical amounts.
Have you ever wondered what the most expensive jewelry in the world looks like? Well, we'll be happy to answer it.
10. Watch-bracelet "201 carats"
Show time for $ 25 million.
Imagine a picture: you are walking down the street, a stranger asks: "Can you tell me what time it is?" You slip the sleeve of your clothes with a careless gesture and expose your wrist, on which ... a watch made of 874 diamonds!
The Chopard’s 201 carat bracelet watch is a masterpiece not only of timekeeping, but also of jewelry. The colorful cluster of diamonds on this elegant piece of jewelery is priced at $ 25 million. It is included in top ten most expensive wristwatches in the world.
But, unlike other super-expensive wristwatches, Chopard’s 201 carat can be worn exclusively as a bracelet. Its dial will not be visible until a special mechanism reveals three large diamonds in the center of the bracelet.
9. Hatton-Mdivani necklace
Estimated at $ 27.4 million.
One of the most famous and most expensive pieces of jewelry in the world, it consists of 27 jade beads, 15 mm in diameter, with a clasp in 18K yellow gold, rubies and diamonds.
Its most famous owner was American Barbara Hutton, who received the necklace from her father as a gift for a wedding with the Georgian prince Alexis Mdivani in 1933. Two years later, the marriage broke up, but the necklace remained in the Mdivani family for a long time.
Nina Mdivani, the wife of Conan Doyle's son, did not part with the necklace even at the most difficult time for herself. But after her death, the jade necklace still sold for $ 2 million. Since then, it was resold twice more, until it got to the Cartier jewelry house, where it is located to this day.
8. Josephine's blue moon
The diamond is worth $ 48.4 million.
In 2015, Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau acquired a delicious blue diamond for his daughter, after whom he got his name.
The diamond, which later became the "Blue Moon of Josephine", was discovered in 2014 in a mine in South Africa. Without cutting, it weighed 29.6 carats, and after processing it "lost a lot" and began to weigh 12.03 carats.
Together with the Blue Moon, Joseph Lau's daughter, Josephine, became the owner of another gem - a pink diamond worth $ 28.5 million. It was simply called "Sweet Josephine." What can you say, the girl was lucky.
7. Pink Graff
One of the most expensive rings in the world worth $ 46.2 million.
Set in a nearly 25-carat pink diamond, this ring once belonged to New York jeweler Gary Winston. For about 60 years he kept it in his private collection.
When the rare pink diamond appeared at Sotheby's in 2010, no one expected it to sell for $ 46.2 million. The ring was valued at no more than $ 38 million.However, the new owner - billionaire Lawrence Graff - has paid an incredible sum for the right to call this precious thing by his name.
6. Necklace "Incomparable"
Can be purchased for $ 55 million.
In 2013, the Lebanese jewelry brand Mouawad introduced the L'Incomparable necklace, made of 637 carats of diamonds. In its center is the largest yellow diamond known today, weighing 407.48 carats.
According to legend, a small Congolese woman found the yellow gem in a pile of ordinary stones. Before cutting, it weighed 890 carats.
5. Blue Oppenheimer
It was sold by Christie's for $ 57.5 million.
One of the most expensive jewelry in the world weighs 14.62 carats.
Much of the Blue Oppenheimer's history is shrouded in mystery, except for the fact that it was mined somewhere in South Africa, probably in the early 20th century.
The diamond was presented to Sir Philip Oppenheimer, whose family has long controlled De Beers. He purchased the stone as a gift for his wife, although details of when it happened and how much it cost are not known.
In 2016, Christie’s auctioned the famous rectangular-cut blue diamond for auction. It took only 25 minutes for an anonymous buyer to acquire it.
4. Pink star
This diamond is worth $ 71.2 million.
Before becoming a luxury piece of jewelry at 59.6 carats, the Pink Star was a 132.5 carat rough diamond. It was mined by employees of the international corporation De Beers in 1999 in South Africa.
After 20 months of work by the best jewelers at Steinmetz Diamonds, the Pink Star has regained its current shape. And in 2017 it was sold at Sotheby’s auction for $ 71.2 million. The buyer was the Hong Kong jewelry company Chow Tai Fook, which renamed the diamond in its honor - CTF Pink.
3. Diamond peacock
The price of the jewel is $ 100 million.
It is difficult to imagine that this small 10-centimeter decoration is one of most expensive things in the world. It is made by the Graff Diamonds jewelry company, which creates luxury items as beautiful as they are expensive.
The brooch, in the shape of a peacock with an open tail, contains over 1300 white, yellow, blue and orange diamonds. Their total weight reaches 120.81 carats. At the tip of each feather is a white diamond shaped like a flower bud.
A very rare dark blue pear-shaped diamond is placed in the center of the brooch and weighs up to 20.02 carats. It can be removed from the brooch and worn as a pendant.
2. Necklace "Blooming Heritage"
Heritage in Bloom is worth $ 200 million.
The most expensive diamond necklace in the world was created by the Chinese jeweler Wallace Chan and combines features of Eastern and Western cultures. It has a complex design of hundreds of parts, and some of them share a "common ancestor" - they were created from the Cullinan Heritage diamond weighing 507.55 carats.
In the center of the necklace is a pure 104-carat diamond (also part of the Cullinan Legacy), and a total of 598 pink diamonds, 10,953 small white diamonds and 24 large diamonds were used to create this triumph of wealth and beauty. Chan also used green jadeite and hundreds of white jade beads, which were encrusted with diamonds. And since the weight of thousands of stones is difficult to support, the Legacy Blossom frame is made of lightweight titanium.
1. Hope Diamond
The most expensive piece of jewelry in the world is worth $ 250 million.
"The cursed stone", "blue Frenchman", "the left eye of the god Rama", "the stone of the goddess Sita", as soon as this famous cut diamond was not called. Its weight is 45.52 carats, which makes this gem one of the largest diamonds in the world. Experts believe that its unusual sapphire blue color is due to the presence of small amounts of boron atoms.
Before the stone turned into a Hope diamond, it was even bigger than it is now. It is believed to have come from one of the Golconda mines in South India. In 1666, it was bought by a French jeweler named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and named Tavernier's Blue Diamond.After a while, the stone was divided into several parts.
- One of the small stones was set in the ring of the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna and is now in the Diamond Fund.
- The other, a 69-carat blue Frenchman, was sold to King Louis XIV, for a long time was among the treasures of the French crown, and after the Great French Revolution was auctioned off, after which his traces were lost. Presumably, the re-cut stone was somehow obtained by the English aristocrat Henry Hope.
It seemed that not only humans, but also evil forces showed an increased interest in the blue diamond.
- The thief, who tried to steal it from the statue of Sita, according to legend, died from lightning that struck him.
- On one of his travels, Tavernier unexpectedly fell ill and died in Moscow, on his way from Copenhagen to Persia.
- In 1715, Louis XIV, who often wore the stone, showed it to the ambassador of the Shah of Persia to demonstrate the complete safety of the jewel. In the same year, the king of France died.
- But Louis XV escaped the curse by ordering to keep the stone in the chest.
- Marie Antoinette, who wore a diamond, was executed by guillotine, like her husband, the French king Louis XVI.
These are just the most famous examples, because the "blue Frenchman" had many owners.
Currently, the blue diamond is one of the stars on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in the United States.
and yet the most expensive and beautiful stone in the world is Emerald.
Agree.