Will One De Beers Cullinan Blue Diamond Price Exceed Five Monets?

The De Beers Cullinan Blue Diamond will be auctioned by Sotheby’s Hong Kong on April 2022.

Blue Diamonds and Monet Paintings

On Wednesday March 2, Sotheby’s London will sell five works by Claude Monet from a private American collection. It’s believed that the five works will fetch a collective £35 million ($50 million). Sotheby’s European chairman and worldwide head of Impressionist and modern art, Helena Newman, said that recent interest in works by Monet “has taken on an even more renewed vigor.” Asian collectors, in particular, have fueled the rise in the artist’s market, she said.

Most of us reading AOC are familiar enough with the value of Monet’s art to understand a preauction estimate of $50 million for the group of five paintings. They include {pictured below] Massif de chrysanthèmes [1897]; Les Demoiselles de Giverny (1892–93), Glaçons, environs de Bennecourt (1892–93), Sur la falaise près de Dieppe, soleil couchant (1897), and Prunes et Abricots (1882–85). ARTnews provides more information about the paintings, which have been on view at Sotheby’s New York, Hong Kong and Taipai before Wednesday’s London auction.

The De Beers Cullinan Blue

On April 27, The De Beers Cullinan Blue diamond will be auctioned by Sotheby’s Hong Kong. This extraordinary 15.10 carat step-cut blue diamond has a preauction estimate of $48 million and could generate a significantly higher price, leaving five Monet paintings in the dust in the value of acquisitions in the art world.

In April 2021 an exceptional rough stone weighing 39.34 carats was discovered at South Africa’s Petra Diamonds Cullinan mine. This phenomenal blue diamond was sold in July 2021 for $40.1 million to the De Beers and Diacore partnership, achieving a price of $1,021,357 per carat.

Cullinan is known as the world’s most important source of blue diamonds, as well as being the birthplace of the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, which was cut to form the 530-carat Great Star of Africa.

The operation also yielded the 317-carat Second Star of Africa. They are the two largest diamonds in the British Crown Jewels. De Beers divested itself of the mine in 2007, part of a larger business strategy to turn to the marketing and selling of diamonds, while turning over mining to more local ownership.

It’s noteworthy that $40 million of the $48 million estimate did go to the Petra mining operation. There is significant loss in ‘waste’ created in cutting the De Beers Cullinan Blue. Presumably there is some value in the ‘waste’ but common sense suggests that the perfect blue diamond will sell at a price higher than $48 million, the highest estimate ever for a blue diamond.

The De Beers Cullinan Blue has made only two stops on the way to its April 27 Sotheby’s auction. The blue diamond was cut at Diacore, a De Beers partner whose maser cutters cut and polished the gem. This process is extraordinarily challenging with zero tolerance for the slightest mistake. The Cullinan Blue then arrived at the Gemological Institute of America, where it was found to be the largest internally flawless step-cut vivid blue diamond its lab had ever graded, explained Wenhao Yu, the Hong Kong-based chairman of jewelry and watches for Sotheby’s Asia.

Yu also compared the Cullinan Blue to art, noting that Sotheby’s sold Botticelli’s ‘The Man of Sorrows’ for $45 million in January 2022, against an estimate over $40 million.

Botticelli’s ‘The Man of Sorrows’

Recent sales of blue diamonds confirm Yu’s opinion that there is upside in the actual price the De Beers Cullinan Blue will bring at auction.

In 2016, a 14.6-carat blue diamond called the ‘Oppenheimer Blue’ was auctioned by Christie’s Geneva for $57.5 million, including fees. The year prior, the 12.03-carat Blue Moon of Josephine sold for $48.5 million at Sotheby’s Geneva.

Natural blue diamonds are extremely rare, comprising only about 0.02% of all mined diamonds. Presently, these gems are found in only three mines globally: the Cullinan mine in South Africa, the Golconda mine in India, and the Argyle mine in Australia.

The De Beers Cullinan Blue Diamond largest internally flawless step-cut vivid blue diamond Gemological Institute of America.