Vivid pink diamond auctioned for CHF28.4 million

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Christie’s said an unidentified Asian buyer snapped up the diamond. © Keystone / Martial Trezzini

A pear-shaped 18-carat pink diamond billed as a rarity has sold at a Geneva auction for CHF28.4 million ($28.8 million), including fees and taxes.

The “Fortune Pink” fancy vivid pink stone, said to be the largest of its kind and shape to go on the block, headlined Christie’s latest Geneva sale of jewellery. It had been expected to fetch between $25 million and $35 million.

The auction house said an unidentified Asian buyer snapped up the diamond on Tuesday.

Max Fawcett, head of Christie’s jewellery department in Geneva, said the stone with a strong, saturated pink colour was mined in Brazil more than 15 years ago. He declined to identify its owner, but described the diamond as “a true miracle of nature”.

Christie’s says the first pink diamonds ever recorded were found in India’s Golconda mines in the 16th century, before others turned up over the centuries in places like Africa, Australia, Brazil and Russia.

The pink stone’s auction followed a showroom tour in New York, Shanghai, Singapore and Taiwan before its arrival in Geneva.

The auction comes six months after Christie’s sold “The Rock” – a 228-carat egg-sized white diamond billed as the largest of its kind to go up for auction – for more than $21.75 million, including fees. That was also at the low end of the expected range.

The world record for a pink diamond was set in 2017, when a stone called the “CTF Pink Star” was sold in Hong Kong for $71.2 million (CHF 70.2 million).