Ruby Sets Record Price at $95 Million Sotheby’s Jewelry Auction
Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) — An 8.62-carat ruby set a record auction price as Sotheby’s concluded a $95 million sale of jewelry last night in Geneva, including a pearl necklace probably once owned by Napoleon Bonaparte’s first wife.
British billionaire jeweler Laurence Graff bid $8.6 million for the Graff Ruby, which he had previously owned, and he also spent $3.2 million on a 3.16-carat intense-blue diamond ring, the auction house said. The necklace, made of 111 pearls, sold for $3.4 million, more than double the high estimate.
The sale also set an auction record for a Kashmir sapphire as an Asian bidder paid $5.9 million for a 27.54-carat sapphire- and-diamond ring.
The transactions yesterday concluded Geneva’s autumn auction season, which featured Sotheby’s $24 million sale of the Graves Supercomplication, the most complicated watch ever produced entirely by hand, as well as a record $150 million jewelry auction by Christie’s.
To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Mulier in Geneva at tmulier@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.net Tom Lavell, Kim McLaughlin
