A super blue diamond and many exceptional jewels at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction.
An exceptional Fancy Vivid Blue diamond, weighing 9.51 carats, is up for sale at Christie’s. It’s The Mellon Blue, the auction house’s first flagship jewel of the second half of 2025. The stone is graded Internally Flawless and is set as a ring. The diamond will be sold in the Magnificent Jewels sale to be held on November 11th at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. This type of diamond is particularly rare, and this specimen is remarkable for both its intense color and its extraordinary clarity.
How much is it worth? Experts estimate it between $20 and $30 million. Its name comes from the fact that for decades the stone, set as a pendant, belonged to Rachel Lambert Mellon, better known as Bunny Mellon (1910–2014), a wealthy American philanthropist and art collector. The Mellons are a wealthy and influential American family from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, active in banking, finance, business, and politics. Bunny Mellon was a symbol of elegance and refinement. The diamond was last seen publicly in 2014, when it was offered at auction in New York, achieving one of the highest prices ever paid for a colored diamond at auction.
Christie’s sold nine of the top ten jewels at auction in the first half of the year, with a 25% year-over-year increase, with two separate owner-led live auctions achieving 100% sales in New York and Geneva. We now look forward to the second half of 2025 with confidence as we announce The Mellon Blue. This stunning Fancy Vivid Blue diamond, once owned by the American Garden Queen, is among the most valuable colored diamonds ever offered for sale at auction.
Rahul Kadakia, International Head of Jewelry at Christie’s
In addition to the super blue diamond, the Magnificent Jewels auction includes three important private collections. A Splendid Casket of Ancestral Jewellery features ruby jewels, part of a prestigious ensemble inherited by Helena Violet Alice (née Fraser), 3rd Countess of Stradbroke (1874–1949). These pieces represent some of the finest surviving examples of Victorian craftsmanship, featuring gemstones of a size and quality rarely seen outside the royal collections of the era. At the coronation of Edward VII in 1902, the Countess wore the ruby and diamond star brooch (estimate $1,400,000–$2,000,000), complemented by the regal ruby and diamond tiara (estimate $360,000–$600,000).
Rainbow Collection: Eddy Elzas entered the Antwerp diamond trade at a young age, starting his career as a diamond cutter before moving into brokerage. In the early 1970s, while in South Africa, he was shown a cigar box full of colored diamonds, stones that had failed to find buyers and were, at the time, considered less commercially valuable than white diamonds. For Elzas, however, these were not rejects, but the beginning of something new.
The Rainbow Collection is one of the largest and most conceptually coherent private collections of fancy color diamonds, consisting of over 300 natural stones of various cuts and carats, spanning the entire color spectrum: red, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, and gray. Each diamond was selected for its ability to represent a unique and unrepeatable hue (2,000,000-3,000,000).
A private collection JA. Also on sale at Christie’s is the second-largest Jar collection ever presented at auction, comprising 25 exceptional pieces. The collection is led by an 8.68-carat (2.5-3.5 million) fancy purplish-pink natural diamond ring, following the Marie-Thérèse diamond (which set a new auction record for a Jar jewel when it sold for just under $14 million at Christie’s New York in June).
Other items in the catalog
A 65.46-carat cushion-shaped unheated Burmese royal blue sapphire brooch, surrounded by nine significant colorless diamonds (2,600,000-3,800,000); a Burmese ruby star brooch centered on a 10.07-carat oval brilliant-cut ruby, set with old cushion- and rose-cut diamonds, worn by the Countess of Stradbroke at the coronation of Edward VII (1,400,000-2,000,000); and an Art Nouveau Floral Brooch by Tiffany & Co. centered on a Demantoid Garnet (110,000-150,000): designed by Paulding Farnham for Tiffany & Co. in 1901. As the century turned, design sensibilities shifted away from the delicate, feminine aesthetic of the Victorian era toward bolder, more colorful expressions. This new direction included a revival of Renaissance styles, and Farnham emerged as a leading figure in the American interpretation of this trend.
A Lacloche Frères Art Deco bracelet, set with diamonds and gems, remained unseen on the market for nearly 20 years (410,000-630,000). Designed as an articulated diamond band depicting a Chinese pagoda and a boat within an oriental garden, set with emeralds, rubies, and calibré-cut onyx, circa 1925, signed Lacloche Frères no. 65724. Founded in Paris 150 years ago, in 1875, Lacloche Frères quickly became a renowned European jeweler and expanded to London in 1904, opening a branch at 2 New Bond Street. The house’s Jabot brooch became a signature piece of Art Deco.
