The exceptional diamond “The Mellon Blue”stone from 9.51 blue carats set in a ring, was sold by Christie’s auction house on November 11, in Geneva. The final price, estimated between 20 and 30 million dollars, it amounted to $25,592,269taxes included.
Having belonged for decades to the American philanthropist Rachel Lambert Mellon, the diamond – belonging to the rare and very precious “Fancy Color” category and classified as free of internal imperfections, is considered exceptional for color and purityand has been defined as a “rare expression of the brilliance of nature”.
History and characteristics of Mellon Blue by Rachel Lambert Mellon
The blue diamond has long belonged to America Rachel Lambert Mellon (1910-2014), known as “Bunny”. A philanthropist, art collector and garden designer, Mellon is best known for redesigning the White House rose garden at the request of the Kennedys in 1961, the Potager du Roi at Versailles and the gardens of Hubert de Givenchy’s home.
Bunny and her husband, Paul Mellon, were very wealthy: she was born into a large industrial family, he was the heir to a banking dynasty. The stone was purchased and initially set as a pendant to be worn around the neck, and only recently was it repurposed as a ring. Blue Mellon is classified “Internally Flawless” (IF), definition of the degree of purity of diamonds which indicates that it is free of internal inclusions visible with 10x magnification (therefore very pure), but may still present microscopic surface imperfections. Diamonds classified in this way are very rare, and therefore considered extremely precious.
How are diamonds classified and why are blue diamonds so valuable?
Diamonds are classified based on 4 characteristics, on the basis of which their value is determined:
- carator their weight, expressed with the unit of measurement of carats (1 carat = 0.2 grams)
- colorwhose scale goes from the letter D (colorless diamonds, considered the most precious) to Z (yellow/light brown). Then there are the “Fancy Color” diamonds, which have particular colors assumed in a natural way, such as blue, pink, green or with yellow shades, considered very precious because they are very rare. Blue Mellon, in fact, belongs to this category. This is because their blue color comes from the presence of traces of boron, which absorbs light in a unique way. And it is precisely this combination of rarity and beauty that makes them highly sought after in the gem market.
- purityevaluated based on the absence of internal and external inclusions. The most precious are the Flawless/Internally Flawless diamonds, such as the Blue Mellon, which do not present any imperfections even with 10x magnification, and the least precious are those which present defects visible to the naked eye
- cutor the quality of the workmanship that determines the brilliance and light
The most precious diamonds ever: one is even priceless
The Blue Melon it is an exceptional diamond, but it is not the most expensive auction in the world: to date, the two diamonds to have reached dizzying figures, thanks to their splendor and their purity, were the Oppenheimer Bluea 14.62-carat blue “Fancy Color” sold at Christie’s for $57.5 million, and the Pink Stara very precious pink diamond sold by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong for 71.2 million dollars.
At the top of the ranking of the most precious diamonds in the world, however, we find the legendary Kooh-I-Noor, which is part of the British Crown Jewels kept in the Tower of London: it is set in the center of the Maltese cross in the crown of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, wife of George VI, and its value is inestimable.
