Coloured diamonds gain popularity as they fetch high prices at auctions

May 2 , 2018

Diamonds from the Argyle mine in Western Australia are coloured by a rare geology, mining experts say.

Connoisseurs know their real value. Inspired by their vibrant colours, fine jewellers such as Graff, Cartier and Chanel create exquisite pieces

Nature’s palette is endless, be it flowers or diamonds. “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever.

“Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact colour and shape, until it gives your own naïve impression of the scene before you,” said the French painter Claude Monet.

Graff multishape diamond necklace featuring a 53.94ct emerald cut yellow diamond, total diamonds 130.62ct

When, like a paintbox, Hong Kong-based jewellery designer Edmond Chin was faced with a small chest of superb coloured diamonds of the best hues but differing shapes and tonalities, it inspired him to create the magnificent “Manuscript” bracelet, for the Geneva-based House of Boghossian, in which coloured diamonds flower heads intersperse between coiling tendrils of coloured diamonds accentuated by 19th-century antique hand-cut half pearls.

“We are so proud to be able to offer this amazing bracelet, which will adorn the cover of our Spring Auction [May 29] catalogue,” says Vickie Sek, chairman, jewellery, Asia, for Christie’s Hong Kong.

“There are rare-colour diamonds in the bracelet which we don’t see often. Top colour diamonds are certainly a good investment as we can see they fetch higher prices in the past auctions. Their prices will continue to rise, that’s why they are sought after by collectors.”

Chin agrees. “The prices have risen dramatically in the last five years,” he says.

History was made when a 56.6ct oval mixed-cut fancy vivid pink internally flawless diamond was sold for a world-record

Pink green diamond flower ring by Forms, a Hong Kong-based jeweller founded by Tzvika Janover and Elad Assor.

US$71.2 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong auction in April last year to jeweller Chow Tai Fook.

And, in 2015, a 16.08ct fancy vivid pink diamond was sold by Christie’s to Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau

Luen-hung.

He then went on to buy a flawless 12.03ct cushion-shaped fancy vivid blue at Sotheby’s, renaming it “The Blue Moon of Josephine”, after his then-seven-year-old daughter, while the pink cushion-shaped stone was renamed “Sweet Josephine”.