There are high-quality diamonds, and then there are diamonds that exist in such a special category that the usual vocabulary of the trade barely applies. The ornate, vibrant blue-green Ocean Dream, which sold yesterday (May 13) at Christie’s The grand jewel auction in Geneva for $17.3 million is one of the latter. This 5.51-carat, triangular-cut stone has such an unlikely color that, as the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) notes in its materials, some might assume it was artificially enhanced.
But the unique attractive color of the stone is not a man-made feature of chemistry. Tom MosesGIA’s executive vice president and chief of laboratory and research, was involved in the original Ocean Dream cut more than 20 years ago and has examined and graded it several times since then. “Blue-green diamonds are extremely rare because their color depends on a very specific set of natural conditions,” he told the Observer. In diamonds like Ocean Dream, the blue-green hue is caused by exposure to natural radiation near the earth’s surface over millions of years—a geological occurrence so unusual that no other natural diamond of comparable color and size has ever been recorded. In fact, the Ocean Dream is the largest diamond of its kind graded by the GIA since the organization was founded in 1931.
Only a few hundred visible natural blue diamonds exist globally; perhaps only 300 green diamonds exceed one carat. Stones with shades of blue and green are extremely rare. (The Ocean Paradise diamond, owned by the Nahshonov Group, is another natural blue-green diamond, but it is not as highly colored and only a fraction of the carat weight.) These stones are difficult to work, according to Moses, especially because of the properties that give them their extraordinary color: delicate, as the cutter must preserve the color while also balancing shape, weight and brilliance.”
In its rough form – 11.7 carats, mined in Central Africa in the 1990s – the Ocean Dream was purchased by Cora Diamond Corporation in New York, which commissioned the master cutter. Mazhar Saylam to form it into a modified triangular diamond. The stone made its public debut at an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, “The Sparkle of Diamonds” in 2003, where it was displayed alongside six of the most extraordinary diamonds on earth: the Moussaieff Red, the De Beers Millennium Star, the Pumpkin Diamond, the Blue Heart of Eternity, the Allnatt Vivid Yellow Diamond and the Steinmetz Pink Star. After the exhibition closed, talk of the Ocean Dream simply disappeared from the public or disappeared from the public.
The remarkable result in Geneva is what happens when a peerless gem returns to a market that has spent more than a decade remembering it. The Christie’s result nearly doubles the $9.8 million it achieved in the auction house’s 2014 sale of the magnificent jewel, setting a new world record for a blue-green diamond. “The result at Christie’s reflects the continued demand for exceptional naturally colored diamonds,” said Moses. Collectors at this level are looking for gems with characteristics and histories that are beautiful and unique.
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