World's largest diamond auctioned for record $34 million in Geneva

November 15, 2017 08:13

The largest diamond ever offered at an auction went under the hammer in Geneva for nearly $34 million (Rs 222 crore), a world record for a gem of its kind, the Christie's auction house said.

The 163.41-carat flawless D colour diamond is suspended from an emerald and diamond necklace called The Art of Grisogono.

This marks "a new world-record price for a D colour diamond at auction," said Rahul Kadakia, auctioneer and head of Christie's international jewels division.

D is the highest colour grade attributed to a diamond, indicating that the stone is completely colourless, and thus extremely rare.

The flawless, D colour 11A type diamond was cut from a 404 carat rough rock which was discovered in February 2016 in the Lulo mine in Angola -- the 27th biggest rough white diamond ever discovered.

The rough was analysed in Antwerp and cut in New York, where a team of 10 diamond-cutting specialists were involved in mapping, plotting, cleaving, laser-cutting and polishing the giant rough rock into a polished, flawless diamond.

A team from Swiss luxury jeweller de Grisogono then created 50 different designs around the 163.41-carat diamond, before opting for an asymmetric necklace with the stone as its centrepiece.

The left side of the necklace is made up of 18 emerald-cut diamonds and the right side composed of two rows of pear-shaped emeralds.

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