Aga Khan's emerald reaches record $9 million at Geneva auction

A rare 37-carat square emerald owned by the Aga Khan sold for nearly $9 million at an auction in Geneva on Tuesday, making it the most expensive green stone in the world.

Sold by Christie's, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, dethrones a jewel from the Bulgari house, which Richard Burton gave as a wedding gift to actress Elizabeth Taylor, as the most precious. emerald.

In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-cut diamonds for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.

Dyer then auctioned the emerald to raise money for the animals in 1969.

By chance, it was at Christie's first such sale in Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva, and the emerald returned to the 110th edition this year.

It was bought by the jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels before passing a few years later into the hands of the American Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds”.

“Emeralds are all the rage at the moment and this one ticks all the boxes,” said Max Fawcett, Christie's jewelery director in EMEA.

“We may see an emerald of this quality for sale once every five or six years.”

Also set with diamonds, the previous record holder sold for $6.5 million at an auction of part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor's famous jewelry collection in New York.