RED CARPET JEWELRY

Christies photo

The 35.56 carat Wittelsbach Diamond

Jewelry auction

Thrilling Wittelsbach blue diamond will be a landmark sale

By Bernadette Morra

History, royal provenance, exceptional beauty and original condition – these four points sum up all that one looks for in a gemstone.

The Wittelsbach Diamond has them all.

The 35.56 carat stone, the second largest blue diamond in the world, goes on the block at Christie’s London sale on Dec. 10.

The winning bid is likely to far exceed the $15 million estimate, given that a 13.39 carat blue diamond sold for $8.9 million at Christie’s Geneva in May. The largest blue diamond, at 45.52 carats, is the Hope diamond. It is housed in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

“It is a great honour and a lifetime dream to handle a museum quality stone such as the Wittelsbach,” comments Francois Curiel, chairman of Christie’s Europe and International Head of Jewellery. Curiel cites the grayish-blue stone’s exceptionally rare colour and its 300 years of royal connections for making it one of the most thrilling jewels to come to market.

The Wittelsbach’s history can be traced to the 17th century, when King Philip IV of Spain chose it as part of the dowry for his 15-year-old daughter, the Infanta Margarita Teresa. She wed Leopold I of Austria, who later became the Holy Roman Emperor.

The stone passed to the Wittelsbachs, the royal family of Bavaria, when the Austrian archduchess, Maria Amalia, married the Bavarian prince Charles Albert in 1722. It stayed in the family even after the monarchy was abolished in 1918.

The Wittelsbach came up for auction at Christies in 1931 but no buyer was found. The stone reappeared in 1961 when the heirs of one of Europe’s most successful diamond dealers, Romi Goldmuntz, brought it to an Antwerp jeweler and asked that it be broken up into smaller stones. Thankfully, he refused.

The diamond was purchased by a private collector in 1964. Heidi Horton, the wealthiest woman in Austria, has been seen wearing such a stone. Her late husband gave her a blue diamond as a wedding present in 1966.

Bavarian authorities would like to bring the stone home, reports say. But at what cost?

“You cannot put a price on a diamond with a provenance like this,” Christie’s Hannah Schmidt told The Times.