What do you do with a 30-year collection of precious gemstones? If you're an anonymous Chinese collector with an affinity for Da Vinci, you create a 100,000-carat replica of the Mona Lisa and put it on display in a local shopping mall.
And you thought The Real Housewives had too much leisure time?
The carat-heavy creation is thought to be the most expensive replica of the masterwork and perhaps the most expensive artwork ever made - taking five years to complete.
While many strange materials have been utilized in the past as the basis for Mona Lisa duplicates - including coffee cups, pieces of toast, motherboard components and even burger grease - jewels and gems are apparently a first.
So what's the price tag for macked-out Mona? The secretive designer won't reveal the final number - which is sure to be hefty one if it goes on the auction block later this year.
In the meantime, mall rats can marvel at Mona in between stops at the Shenyang shopping center food court and accessory splurges at Claire's.
All proceeds will support the purchase works of art and craft for the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to fund conservation and publication projects, and to support exhibitions and education programs.
Cheers to the lucky auction winner who acquired this ring at only half of its retail value! We hope she cherishes it, wears it often, shares it with her friends and appreciates the cause to which the proceeds went!
Stay up to date with Etienne Perret's latest events on Facebook, to make sure you have the opportunity to participate in Etienne's next charity auction, for the chance to acquire one of his gorgeous designs at a discount price!
Huge diamond alert! Christie's held their "Jewels: The New York Sale" yesterday, and the famous Bvlgari Blue Diamond wasn't just their top seller at a whopping $15.7 million - it broke the price-per- carat barrier to boot!
What a little over-achievor...
"A world record price was achieved on Oct. 20 for The Bulgari Blue, a much-celebrated stone that came up for sale at Christie's for the first time in almost 40 years," said Rahul Kadakia, head of jewelry for Christie's Americas in a release.
The jewel was purchased in Rome in 1972 for $1 million and was given as a gift from the collector to his wife to celebrate their first son's birth, according to Christie's.
As an active member of Rotary International and the Chamber of Commerce, Etienne has always felt strongly about playing a part in his local community of Camden, Maine and beyond. When not busy working on International aid projects for Rotary, he often accept invitations to donate his jewelry to charity auctions for a variety of causes. Sometimes these are large-scale foundations, but more often than not, they are organizations targeting Maine's Mid-coast region, such as Broadreach Family & Community Services.
The Fabulous Food of the Midcoast event will take place on October 7th at the Point Lookout Conference Center in Northport. Twenty or more local restaurants, caterers and other purveyors of fine foods and wine will be offering samples of their specialties in support of a fundraising event for Broadreach Family & Community Services. A $25 ticket allows entrance and sampling of the food offerings...
Cultured pearls with 14 kt gold rings on a fine gold chain necklace, donated by jeweler Etienne Perret of Camden
All proceeds from the event will be used in support of programs serving residents from Winterport to Waldoboro. Broadreach Family & Community Services is a 501 (c) (3) agency that has been providing mental health and educational services to meet the needs of the children and families of mid-coast Maine since 1983. Broadreach delivers programs through the following five service areas: Mental and Behavioral Services; Early Education and Intervention Services; Prevention Services; Youth Services and; Adult and Family Literacy Services. More information can be found on the Broadreach website at www.brmaine.org or call 338-2200 ext 109 for ticket information.
I've got one doozy of a 'lower jaw drop' alert, jewelry lovers. Christie's reports that the storied 'Evening Star' diamond recently sold for a whopping $5.4 million, the latest in a line of remarkable diamonds to dazzle at auction.
According to a press release, the 39-carat, D color diamond from India's famed Golconda mines was snatched up by an anonymous buyer, paying $138,000 per carat for the diamond dubbed the "Evening Star" because its previous owner liked to wear it out at night.
How charming for them.
The icy rock was part of Christie's "Magnificent Jewels from a Distinguished Private Collector" sale, held Thursday in New York.
The sale of the "Evening Star" comes on the heels of the record-setting $10.8 million sale of "The Vivid Pink" diamond Dec. 1 in Hong Kong and the $7.7 million sale of the 32.01-carat D-flawless Annenberg Diamond in October.
"The diamond market continues to show remarkable strength despite the volatility of the financial world," Rahul Kadakia, head of jewelry at Christie's New York, said in the release.
Indeed.
My question is: who wears these things in the light of day? Don't you have to have a body guard brigade following your every move? Or is it something these folks will just keep in a showcase for or a vault somewhere for their own personal enjoyment (which would be a crying shame)?
What would you guys do with a rock that size? Weigh in!
Colored diamonds are coveted by jewelry lovers everywhere, and despite the economic woe affecting the luxury industry, sales for big, rare stones are still going strong.
While nothing can compare to the world's most expensive blue diamond, The Wittelsbach, which sold to diamond dealer, Laurence Graff, last year for $24.3 million, Sotheby's just unloaded another blue bauble for a stunning $9.4 million.
"The price achieved is a world record by value per carat. This will certainly increase consumers' confidence in buying sparkling stones," said KK Sharma, executive director, Indian Diamond Institute (ID
African miner, Petra Diamonds, unearthed the gem from the Cullinan mine in South Africa, famous for yielding most of the world's best blue diamonds. The fancy vivid blue gem weighs 7.03 carats and is rated internally flawless by the G.I.A. - high praise for a natural stone.
According to the Natural Colored Diamond Association, only one diamond in 10,000 possesses a natural color so strong that it can be classified as fancy color diamond, with reds and blues being the most rare.
Colored diamond fans who don't have millions lying around to snatch a natural stone for their own jewelry box, can find more affordable treated diamonds in every color of the rainbow. Treated colored diamonds are actually natural white diamonds that are subjected to intense heat to give the stones a range of different hues - from black and pink to yellow and blue. And you don't have to have an auction paddle to snatch one of your very own.
If you are in the market for a piece of pop music history, Michael Jackson is having a glorified garage sale of the entire contents of his Neverland Ranch next month, and the loot includes everything from his famous arcade game collection to the actual front gates (Macaulay Caulkin not included).
Julien's Auctions has been workin’ workin’ day and night to sift through thousands of items from the storied property and found so much MJ memorabilia they had to schedule eight different auctions over the course of four days.
So what's on the auction block? There’s a jeweled glove collection – including the iconic white glove worn when Jackson moonwalked his way into pop music history. There’s a closet full of those sequined military jackets from the Victory Tour era (sorry, the Beat It Jacket is not among them). And there’s also a disturbing number of lawn sculptures featuring young children.
Oh, Michael.
Over 2,000 items are up for grabs, and the auctioneers hope to bring in as much as $20 million for Jackson, with a portion of the proceeds going to the music industry charity, Musicares.
Lot highlights, including the glove collection and a pair of moonwalk socks, are currently touring major cities worldwide. The main event begins on Wednesday, April 22nd and runs through Saturday April 25th in Beverly Hills.
What would you do if you had a few grand to put in the mix? Would you loosen your purse strings for the moonwalk socks? Or do you think the whole thing is totally 'off the wall'?
As you jewelry hounds know, I’ve been tracking the Christie’s auction of the stunning 35.56-carat Wittelsbach blue diamond. The rare blue gem was expected to fetch around $15 million, but global economic woes and recent jewelry auction disappointments put the estimated figure in jeopardy, to say the least.
The 17th-century stone was originally given to Infanta Margarita Teresa by her father King Philip IV of Spain on the occasion of her engagement to her uncle, Leopold I of Austria. The diamond remained in royal custody for over 300 years until it found its way into a private collection, where it has remained since 1964.
So what did the historic diamond go for? How about a record-setting $24.3 million! Recession? What recession?
"In the midst of these challenging times, we were thrilled to achieve an historic price for an historic diamond," said Francois Curiel, chairman of Christie's Europe and auctioneer for Wednesday's sale.
The previous sales record was a mere $16.5 million for a 100-carat diamond in 1995.
International jeweler Laurence Graff was the wealthy winner on Wednesday, Christies said in a release. Graff was bidding against Aleks Paul of Essex Global Trading, a professional of Russian origin based in New York.
What on earth will Graff do with the dazzling diamond? According to Bloomberg news, Graff’s son, Francois, said they care less about the historical provenance of the stone and more about its unique diamond properties.
“We’re looking at the stone for what the stone is.” Graff Diamonds will re-cut the diamond with the intention of making the slightly chipped stone flawless and a deeper color, he said: “We’ll lose a few carats, but nothing too substantial.”
It’s rough being the world’s richest supermodel. Diamonds are thrown at your feet, gemstones are bestowed upon you like royalty, and big name actors woo you with bling that would make even a pirate blush. What to do with the clutter? What any sensible, rich, criminally gorgeous woman would do. Get rid of it.
Brazilian beauty, Gisele Bundchen, is streamlining her treasure chest by auctioning thousands of dollars worth of glittering jewels in the Christie’s Jewels: The New York Sale scheduled for October 15th. Tom Brady’s significant other will be selling a 3.35 carat colored Sabbadini diamond ring expected to fetch between $15,000 to $20,000. She is also unloading a six carat diamond pendant necklace worth between $120,000 to $150,000.
The supermodel, who formerly dated actor Leonardo DiCaprio, has not officially revealed who gave her the lavish leftovers she's shedding, but we’re thinking old Leo’s King of the World days are decidedly over. There’s nowhere to go but down, quite frankly.
People reports that a portion of the auction proceeds will go to the Russell Simmons co-founded charity Diamond Empowerment Fund, which provides educational funding to diamond-producing countries in Africa.
For a look at all the yummy baubles up for sale, including the largest stone in the auction, weighing 102 carats and costing an estimated $4 million, click here.
Hip Hop isn't going mainstream - it's gone mainstream. And now, it's going upstream. No longer the domain of urban angst, Hip Hop has entered the echelons of high-society parlours. In this case, some of the most blinged out bling from the genre's stars is going under the hammer at tony auctioneers, Phillips de Pury.
Among the lots of diamonds, gems, rings and pimped out pendants is a jeweled Rolex watch worn by Notorious B.I.G., Lil’ Wayne’s jeweled Money Bag pendant and Biz Markie’s Headphone Necklace. The sale isn't though only about weighing down the jewelry boxes of well-heeled doyennes, proceeds from the sale of select items will benefit the National Museum of American History’s new "Hip-Hop Won’t Stop" collection.
The auction's going down on October 1st but you can get a sneak preview of the rappers' jewels between September 23-30 at the auction house's Chelsea headquarters.
For some down-sizing means throwing away the old, keeping the useful and storing mementos. Family heirlooms, generally tend to fall into the ‘storing pile’. But, what do you do, if the storing pile needs a vault and is worth around $13 million? Sometimes E-bay just isn’t the solution. For Athina Onassis, daughter of Christina Onassis and granddaughter of Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, her clearout called for an auction at Christie’s International in London, not that she needed the money. With a fortune estimated to stand around the $2 billion, the heiress reportedly decided to sell the jewels as ‘they don’t fit with her modern lifestyle’ and not because she need gas money.
The star of the auction was a Harry Winston diamond necklace featuring 38 carat, pear-shaped, D color stone. It sold for a whopping $7.1 million, around $2.5 million more than its estimate. The necklace was just part of a collection of more than that went under the hammer in the UK capital. A diamond ring with a pear-shaped stone weighing 14.79 carats doubled its low estimate selling for around $2.2 million, but there were also some slightly less blinging items on the block. For $3,000 you could have picked up a bangle made of elephant hair etched with the initials of Christina Onassis and her husband.
If you need something special and Clare's Accessories just isn't doing it, then a recent auction in Hong Kong may have had just what you're looking for. The Hong Kong branch of Christie's Auction House recently said 'sold' to a diamond that's described as 'the size of a ping-pong ball'.
Set in a tiara was a 101.27 carat shield-shape diamond that had been cut from a 460-carat rough. The mega-rock, while internally flawless, has a slight imperfection on the surface that is imperceptible to the human eye, according to the auctioneers. Imperfect or not, a private buyer was ready to shell out over $6.1 million for the sparkling headset.
It is the largest colorless diamond to appear on the auction market in the last 18 years, Christie's said. Only three colorless diamonds of more than 100 carats have appeared at auction. All were sold in Geneva. Naming rights were granted to the new owner - suggestions welcome......
An oval blue diamond just won the heavyweight title of the most expensive gem to ever be auctioned. The 3.7 carat fancy-colored blue diamond became the latest acquistion of famed London jeweler, Laurence Graff when he paid a not-to-be-sneezed at $1.33 million per carat for the rock.
The stone was part a jewelry auction in Geneva that raked in around $48.3 million. Other jewels that were snapped at in the swanky Swiss city auction included an emerald colored diamond and pearl necklace that went for $5.6 million and an emerald, colored diamond and pearl necklace that sold for $4.4 million.
Obviously the super-rich aren't feeling the need to tighten the family belt any time soon.
"The price achieved is a world record by value per carat. This will certainly increase consumers' confidence in buying sparkling stones," said KK Sharma, executive director, Indian Diamond Institute (ID
Julien's Auctions has been workin’ workin’ day and night to sift through thousands of items from the storied property and found so much MJ memorabilia they had to schedule eight different auctions over the course of four days.
Lot highlights, including the glove collection and a pair of moonwalk socks, are currently touring major cities worldwide. The main event begins on Wednesday, April 22nd and runs through Saturday April 25th in Beverly Hills.
It’s rough being the world’s richest supermodel. Diamonds are thrown at your feet, gemstones are bestowed upon you like royalty, and big name actors woo you with bling that would make even a pirate blush. What to do with the clutter? What any sensible, rich, criminally gorgeous woman would do. Get rid of it.
For some down-sizing means throwing away the old, keeping the useful and storing mementos. Family heirlooms, generally tend to fall into the ‘storing pile’. But, what do you do, if the storing pile needs a vault and is worth around $13 million? Sometimes E-bay just isn’t the solution. For Athina Onassis, daughter of Christina Onassis and granddaughter of Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, her clearout called for an auction at Christie’s International in London, not that she needed the money. With a fortune estimated to stand around the $2 billion, the heiress reportedly decided to sell the jewels as ‘they don’t fit with her modern lifestyle’ and not because she need gas money.
If you need something special and Clare's Accessories just isn't doing it, then a recent auction in Hong Kong may have had just what you're looking for. The Hong Kong branch of Christie's Auction House recently said 'sold' to a diamond that's described as 'the size of a ping-pong ball'.
