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A blue diamond, formerly known as the ‘Blue Moon Diamond’, has been auctioned for a world record 48.6m Swiss francs (£31.8m).
The 12-carat diamond, which was auctioned at Sotheby’s in Geneva yesterday (November 11), beat the previous auction record for any diamond held by The Graff Pink (24.78-carats), which sold for $46.2m (£30.4m) at Sotheby’s Geneva in 2010.
The diamond also set new auction record for price-per-carat, surpassing the benchmark established last year at Sotheby’s New York by ‘The Zoe Diamond’, which sold for $3.3m (£2.2m) per carat. It represents the first time any diamond or gemstone has reached over $4m (£2.6m) per carat.
The diamond was purchased by property tycoon Joseph Lau just one day after he purchased the largest vivid pink diamond (16.08 carats) to be offered at auction for £19m – a record for any vivid pink diamond – which he renamed ‘The Sweet Josephine’.
Lau renamed the diamond – graded fancy vivid blue, the highest possible colour grading for blue diamonds, and declared internally flawless – ‘The Blue Moon of Josephine’.
David Bennett, Sotheby’s worldwide chairman of jewellery, said: “I am absolutely delighted with this evening’s record result – this show-stopping blue diamond surely is a once-in-a-lifetime stone.”
