£40million Pink Star diamond
EMERALD & DIAMOND TIARA
Prince Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck commissioned a tiara made of diamonds surmounted by 11 exceptionally rare, pear-shaped Colombian emeralds in 1900 for his second wife Princess Katharina. She was considered to have a jewellery collection as fine as that of any royal lady, if not better.
The tiara was sold at auction in Geneva in 2011 for £8.7million to an anonymous buyer. It was the most valuable piece of its kind to have appeared for auction for 30 years and exceeded its highest estimate by more than £1million.
TAJ MAHAL DIAMOND
The heart-shaped diamond is so called because it is believed to have belonged to the Mughal emperor who ordered the building of the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan, who gave it to his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
More than 350 years later, Richard Burton presented it to Elizabeth Taylor for her 40th birthday in 1972, quipping: "I would have liked to buy her the Taj Mahal but it would cost too much to transport." Taylor wore it as a pendant on a 20th-century heavy gold chain set with rubies and diamonds and made by Cartier.
The piece was expected to fetch between £191,000 and £318,000 when it was auctioned in 2011. It exceeded that estimate 20-fold, selling for £6million, a world record price for an Indian piece.
Kate Winslet’s necklace in Titanic was recreated, and sold for £10.8m
HEART OF THE OCEAN
In the blockbuster Titanic, leading lady Kate Winslet wore a necklace with a huge heart-shaped sapphire as its centrepiece. The jewel, named the Heart of the Ocean in the film, was fictional but was so admired by lm-goers that London jewellers Asprey & Garrard, who made the lm prop, were commissioned to make a version with real gems.
They created a necklace with a 171-carat heart-shaped Ceylon sapphire, set in platinum and surrounded by 103 diamonds.
It was donated to be auctioned off by Sotheby's Beverly Hills for the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and was sold to an anonymous buyer for £10.8million.
PANTHER BRACELET
This has diamond ears, emeralds for eyes, platinum teeth and onyx spots and was once owned by Wallis Simpson, later the Duchess of Windsor. It was sold in London by Sotheby's in 2010 for £8million and the buyer was rumoured to be Madonna.
THE PINK STAR
Pink diamonds are very rare and exceptionally prized because nobody knows what makes them pink. This flawless oval stone, mounted in a ring, is 59.6 carats and almost an inch long. It sold at auction at Sotheby's in Geneva in November 2013 for a staggering £40million but the auction house had to take it back when the bidder could not come up with the money.
The £8.7million diamond and emerald tiara
EMPRESS EUGENIE'S BOW BROOCH
Jewellery-maker François Kramer created this in about 1855 for Eugenie, the consort of Napoleon III. It comprises diamonds arranged in a bow shape. In 2008, the President of the Louvre in Paris, Henri Loyrette arranged through Christie's New York to purchase the brooch privately for £6.65million so that he could bring it back to France.
BULGARI BLUE DIAMOND
RING Made in 1972, this unusual setting comprises two triangular-cut diamonds, one white at nearly 10 carats, the other a vivid blue stone of nearly 11 carats. It was sold by Christie's in New York in 2010 for £10.7million to an Asian collector after a three-way bidding war.
THE WITTELSBACH-GRAFF DIAMOND
This 35.5 carat, extremely rare smokey blue stone came from the ancient Indian kingdom of Golkonda. King Philip IV of Spain supposedly bought it to include in his daughter's dowry. in 1664. From the 17th century, it was part of the Bavarian crown jewels. Jewel dealer Laurence Graff acquired the ring in 2008 at Christie's in London for £15million and had it recut. In June 2011, he allegedly sold it to the Emir of Qatar for a whopping £54million.
THE LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
A heart-shaped stone of 56.1 carats, it was originally cut from the Cullinan diamonds, the largest of which, Cullinan I, is set in one of the British crown jewels. Christie's named the unmounted gem the Love At First Sight diamond when it went on sale in 2011 in Geneva. It was bought for £8.2million.
THE GRAFF PINK
Laurence Graff struck again when he bought this rectangular, 24.7 carat pink diamond set in platinum at Sotheby's Geneva in 2010 for £31.6million.
Having acquired what at the time was the most expensive single jewel ever sold, the billionaire named it after himself.
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