Diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones are immortal symbols of wealth and luxury. They are attributed with magical properties, passed down from generation to generation, and the powerful of this world even collect entire collections of jewelry with precious stones, the cost of which reaches astronomical sums.
Have you ever wondered what the most expensive jewelry in the world looks like? Well, we're here to answer that question.
10. Bracelet watch "201 carat"
Shows time for 25 million dollars.
Imagine this: you are walking down the street, a stranger asks: “Can you tell me what time it is?” You casually move your sleeve and expose your wrist, on which is… a watch made of 874 diamonds!
Chopard's 201 carat bracelet watch is not only a masterpiece of timekeeping, but also of jewelry art. The colorful cluster of diamonds on this elegant piece of jewelry makes it worth $25 million. It is one of the top ten most expensive wristwatches in the world.
But unlike other super-expensive wristwatches, Chopard's 201 carat can only be worn as a bracelet. Its dial is not visible until a special mechanism reveals three large diamonds in the center of the bracelet.
9. Hutton-Mdivani Necklace
Valued at $27.4 million.
One of the most famous and expensive pieces of jewelry in the world consists of 27 jade beads with a diameter of 15 mm, with a clasp made of 18-karat yellow gold, rubies and diamonds.
Its most famous owner was the American Barbara Hutton, who received the necklace from her father as a wedding gift to Georgian Prince Alexis Mdivani in 1933. The marriage broke up two years later, 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 in her most difficult time. But after her death, the jade necklace was still sold for 2 million dollars. Since then, it has been resold twice more until it ended up at the Cartier jewelry house, where it remains to this day.
8. Blue Moon of Josephine
The diamond is worth $48.4 million.
In 2015, Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau purchased the stunning blue diamond for his daughter, after whom it was named.
The diamond that later became the Blue Moon of Josephine was discovered in 2014 in a mine in South Africa. Uncut, it weighed 29.6 carats, but after being cut, it “slimmed down” considerably, weighing 12.03 carats.
Along with the Blue Moon, Joseph Lau's daughter, Josephine, became the owner of another precious stone - a pink diamond worth $28.5 million. It was simply named "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.
This ring, which features a nearly 25-carat pink diamond, once belonged to New York jeweler Gary Winston, who kept it in his private collection for nearly 60 years.
When a 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 Laurence Graff, paid an incredible amount for the right to name this precious thing after himself.
6. Necklace "Incomparable"
Available for purchase for $55 million.
In 2013, Lebanese jewelry brand Mouawad presented the L'Incomparable necklace, made of diamonds weighing a total of 637 carats. At its center is the largest yellow diamond known to exist, weighing 407.48 carats.
According to legend, the yellow gem was found by a little Congolese woman in a pile of ordinary stones. Before cutting, it weighed 890 carats.
5. Blue Oppenheimer
It was sold by Christie's auction house for $57.5 million.
One of the most expensive jewels in the world weighs 14.62 carats.
Much of the history of Oppenheimer Blue 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 given to Sir Philip Oppenheimer, whose family had long controlled De Beers. He purchased the stone as a gift for his wife, although details of when this happened or how much it cost are unclear.
In 2016, Christie's auction house put the famous rectangular-cut blue diamond up for auction. It took just 25 minutes for it to be purchased by an anonymous buyer.
4. Pink Star
This diamond is worth $71.2 million.
Before becoming a luxury piece of jewelry, the 59.6-carat Pink Star was a 132.5-carat rough diamond mined by De Beers in South Africa in 1999.
After 20 months of work by the best jewelers of Steinmetz Diamonds, the "Pink Star" acquired its current form. 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 dollars.
It's hard to imagine that this small 10-centimeter piece of jewelry is one of the most expensive things in the world. It was made by the jewelry company Graff Diamonds, which creates luxury items that are as beautiful as they are expensive.
The brooch, in the shape of a peacock with an open tail, contains more than 1,300 white, yellow, blue and orange diamonds. Their total weight reaches 120.81 carats. At the tip of each feather is a white diamond in the shape of a flower bud.
A very rare, deep blue pear-shaped diamond is placed in the center of the brooch and its weight reaches 20.02 carats. It can be removed from the brooch and worn as a pendant.
2. Necklace "Blooming Heritage"
Heritage in Bloom is priced at $200 million.
The world's most expensive diamond necklace was created by Chinese jeweler Wallace Chan and combines elements of Eastern and Western cultures. It has a complex design of hundreds of parts, some of which are united by a "common ancestor" - they were created from the Cullinan Heritage diamond weighing 507.55 carats.
The necklace features a 104-carat pure diamond (also part of the Cullinan Heritage) at its center, 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 nephrite beads encrusted with diamonds. And because the weight of thousands of stones is difficult to support, the Blooming Heritage frame is made of lightweight titanium.
1. The Hope Diamond
The cost of the most expensive piece of jewelry in the world is 250 million dollars.
"The Cursed Stone", "French Blue", "Lord Rama's Left Eye", "Goddess Sita's Stone" - this famous cut diamond has been called by many names. It weighs 45.52 carats, making it 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 it became the Hope Diamond, the stone was even larger than it is now. It is believed to have come from one of the Golconda mines in southern India. In 1666, it was bought by a French jeweler named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and named the Tavernier Blue Diamond. After some time, the stone was cut into several pieces.
- One of the small stones was set into the ring of the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna and is now in the Diamond Fund.
- Another one, the 69-carat "French Blue", was sold to King Louis XIV, was one of the French crown jewels for a long time, and after the French Revolution was auctioned off, after which all traces of it were lost. Presumably, the recut stone was somehow acquired by the English aristocrat Henry Hope.
It seemed that not only people, but also evil forces showed increased interest in the blue diamond.
- The thief who tried to steal it from the statue of Sita, according to legend, died after being struck by lightning.
- During one of his travels, Tavernier suddenly fell ill and died in Moscow, on the 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. That same year, the king of France died.
- But Louis XV avoided the curse by ordering the stone to be kept in a chest.
- Marie Antoinette, who wore the diamond, was executed by guillotine, as was her husband, the French King Louis XVI.
These are only the most famous examples, as the "blue Frenchman" had many owners.
Currently, the blue diamond is one of the stars of the exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in the United States.
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