IN PICS | Russian royal gems, rare coloured diamonds go under the hammer at Geneva auction

Russian royal jewels smuggled out of the country during the 1917 revolution and rare coloured diamonds are on offer at an auction in Geneva next week, looking for deep-pocketed collectors emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic.

An orange-pink diamond weighing 25.62 carats, estimated at 3.6-million to 5.4-million Swiss francs (about R60m to R90m) and set in a ring, is the star lot at auction house Sotheby’s semi-annual jewellery sale in the Swiss city on November 10.

“A beautiful crystal, it’s a fantastic colour with a little bit of orange, but not too much, so it’s a very subtle colour,” Olivier Wagner, head of sale and jewellery expert at Sotheby’s Geneva, told Reuters in the showroom in a lakeside hotel.

“The market is very dynamic and after the pandemic people are very keen to buy jewellery and to buy something tangible they can enjoy.”

For collectors of historic gems, a large oval sapphire and diamond brooch and matching ear clips from the jewellery box of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the aunt of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, is back on the block.

“They belonged to the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia who was the queen of social life in St Petersburg. She was the wife of the Grand Duke Vladimir, so the son of the tsar (Alexander II), and she had a fantastic collection of jewels,” Wagner said.

The royal set, entrusted to her friend and British diplomat Albert Henry Stopford, who took them to London for safekeeping with other jewels, is estimated at Sf280,000 to Sf480,000 (about R4.7m to R8.1m), the auction house said.

Pavlovna escaped from revolutionary Russia and died in France in 1920. Her brooch and earrings are being sold by a European princely family who bought them at auction in 2009, the auction house said.

Sotheby’s is broadening its luxury week with a “Fashion Through Time” online sale aimed at younger collectors in which lots including handbags named for film stars Grace Kelly and Jane Birkin and sneakers worn by the late NBA star Kobe Bryant.

His yellow and black Nike shoes, US size 14, are estimated at Sf25,000 to Sf35,000 (about R421,000 to R589,000). 

Reuters