The Eternal Pink, a very rare diamond, is expected to surpass $35 million at a Sotheby’s auction, which could break records as the most expensive price per carat ever to come to market, as reported by Bloomberg. The 2.1-gram gem will go on show in Hong Kong next week, and later it will be exhibited in Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai, Taiwan, and Geneva. It will be up for sale on 8 June in New York as part of Sotheby’s jewels auction.
Classified as "purplish pink" in colour, the 10.57 carat cushion-cut diamond, which is mounted on a ring, has been described as "glowing" by experts and has the highest ranking possible for quality of colour, defined as "Fancy Vivid." It also has the top score for clarity, known as "Internally Flawless" which means that it has no visible blemishes under 10x magnification. The diamond is also among the most chemically pure, adding to its transparency, as reported by Bloomberg.
Sotheby's have said the gem is comparable to the "ultimate masterpieces of art" and that it’s more unique than a Rene Magritte or Andy Warhol painting. "It is difficult to overstate its rarity and beauty," said Wenhao Yu, chairman of jewellery and watches at Sotheby’s Asia, told Bloomberg.
"This colour is the most beautiful and concentrated shade of pink in diamonds that I have ever seen or that has ever come to market," Quig Bruning, the auction house’s head of jewelry for the Americas said in a statement, as reported by CNN. "The Eternal Pink’s immense presence and great rarity make it comparable to ultimate masterpieces of art — far rarer than a Magritte or a Warhol."
The diamond was mined by De Beers at the Damtshaa mine in Botswana in 2019, and artisans at Diacore in New York worked on it for six months to transform it to its current form, as reported by CNN. The price per carat for The Eternal Pink is estimated to be $3.3 million. This will could challenge the current record held by the Williamson Pink Star, which was sold at the October 2022 Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong for $5.2 million per carat. A private collector based in the US bought it for $57.7 million.
The current auction record for a polished diamond of any colour is held by a 59.6-carat stone that sold for $71.2 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2017, as reported by CNN.
The value of pink diamonds has seen an increase, with three of them featuring in the top five diamonds by value ever sold at auction. Since the closure of the Argyle mine in Australia, the largest supplier of the stones, they have become rarer. Moreover, less than 3% of all the diamonds submitted to the Gemological Institute of America are coloured, and pink is the rarest among those.
The appeal of these diamonds is also attributed to their mystery, as the pink colour isn’t fully understood by experts. While a diamond's colour is usually dependent on precise trace elements such as nitrogen for yellow and boron for blue, for pink diamonds, it's believed that the hue comes from the diamond's formation process deep within the earth, according to Bloomberg.
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