WASHINGTON, September 5 (RIA Novosti) – A “flawless” white diamond the size of an egg went on display at Sotheby’s in New York this week, a month before it goes under the hammer in Hong Kong, the auction house said in a statement on its website.
The 118-carat diamond is the largest of its kind ever to be offered at auction, nearly 20 percent larger than the 101.84 carat “Mouawad Splendour” diamond that currently holds that distinction. Sotheby’s sold that diamond for $12.8 million in 1990.
Only four “white diamonds of this quality over 100 carats have ever been sold at auction,” Sotheby’s said.
The massive diamond was discovered in deep mines in southern Africa in 2011. As a rough diamond, it weighed 299 carats and was “one of the largest and most beautiful diamond roughs found in recent years,” the auction house said.
It is expected to fetch a record price of between $28 million and $35 million when it is auctioned in Hong Kong early next month.
The current auction record price for any white diamond is $26,737,913, paid for ‘The Winston Legacy’ earlier this year at Christie’s auction house in Geneva.
