The Rockefeller Kashmir, an Art Deco ring that belonged to the late John D. Rockefeller 3rd and his wife Blanchette, is to appear in a sale of the couple’s vast art collection.
The Cartier features a 17.66-carat cushion faceted base pyramidal sugarloaf cabochon sapphire, with diamonds and carries a $1.5m to $2.5m estimate.
The ring was created around 1925 and has been in the Rockefeller family for three generations.
John D. Rockefeller 3rd inherited billions of dollars from the family’s Standard Oil empire, and was a prominent philanthropist.
The ring will be auctioned at Christie’s New York at the Magnificent Jewels event, during their December Luxury Week, on 10 December.
The collection of Asian art, jewelry, major American paintings and other heirlooms, was held by the couple’s daughter Sandra Ferry Rockefeller, who died in October 2024, aged 89.
Some of the sale proceeds will benefit her youth empowerment foundation.
The Blue Belle sapphire and diamond necklace is to lead a Christie’s New York sale next month with an estimate of $8m to $12m.
The tassel pendant features a 392.52 carat unheated, cushion modified, mixed-cut sapphire from the famed Ratnapura region of Sri Lanka, together with oval-shaped diamond terminals, and a brilliant-cut diamond neckchain, mounted in gold.
The estimate is well below the $17.6m the piece sold for at Christie’s Geneva when it last changed hands in November 2014.
The sapphire was recovered in 1926 and was sold in 1937 to was sold to British motor magnate Lord Nuffield, founder of Morris Motors.
There were reports at the time that the gem would be gifted to HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on her coronation day, though this didn’t actually happen.
“Sapphires of this caliber are extraordinarily rare,” said Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s international head of jewelry.
“This remarkable stone must be considered among the most prestigious colored gemstones to appear on the market in many years – truly worthy of any world-class collection.
Among other highlights at the Magnificent Jewels live auction on 17 June, is the Marie-Thérèse Pink Diamond, 10.38-carat kite-shaped fancy purple-pink diamond that is said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette.
It has recently been set into a contemporary ring by the Parisian jeweler Joel Arthur Rosenthal
A sapphire and diamond ring took the top spot at a recent jewelry sale at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, smashing its high estimate.
The piece, which contains a cushion-shaped, 17.50-carat, royal-blue Burmese sapphire surrounded by marquise-cut diamonds, sold for HKD 2.8 million ($357,226), the auction house said last week. That figure was well above its upper presale price.
In total, the January 31 Important Jewels auction brought in HKD 48.9 million ($6.3 million).
Yellow diamonds performed well at the sale, as did jewels by well-known design houses, including Graff, Cartier, Buccellati, and Van Cleef & Arpels. Sotheby’s also sold several diamonds and both green and lavender jadeite pieces with no reserve.
Here are the other four items rounding out the top five:
This cushion-shaped, 14.51-carat, fancy-intense-yellow, VS1-clarity diamond ring by Bulgari went for HKD 2.5 million ($324,751), within its presale estimate.
A ring set with an oval-shaped, 7.02-carat, Mozambican ruby center stone, surrounded by oval and pear-shaped diamonds, fetched HKD 2.5 million, just under its HKD 2.6 million ($332,422) upper price.Sotheby’s sold this Graff bracelet, featuring nine cut-cornered square or rectangular-modified, fancy-intense-yellow diamonds ranging from 1.62 to 5.21 carats and 18 yellow-tinted diamonds for HKD 2.4 million ($308,513), within its estimate.A pair of earrings, each suspending an oval ruby — one weighing 4.26 carats and the other 4.09 carats —and brilliant-cut diamonds, garnered HKD 1.9 million ($243,563) at the sale, within its presale price range.
Christie’s sold a Kashmir sapphire and diamond bracelet to Harry Winston for $6 million on Tuesday, kicking off the December New York Magnificent Jewels season.
The piece, which led the auction house’s New York sale, featured a 43.10-carat sapphire surrounded by 67.90 carats of D-color, internally flawless diamonds. The final price fell within the estimate of $5 million to $7 million that Christie’s had given ahead of the sale.
“We are very proud to have purchased this extraordinary Kashmir sapphire, which joins the ranks of the finest diamonds and colored gemstones acquired by Winston to form our superb Legacy Collection,” Harry Winston CEO Nayla Hayek said in a statement Tuesday.
Christie’s brought in $44.6 million at the 10-hour Magnificent Jewels auction, with 95% of items selling by value and 91% by lot, it reported. Bidders took part from 39 countries, with the final sales total equal to 118% of the items’ combined low estimates.
Sapphires were a theme at the sale: A 1917 Van Cleef & Arpels ring featuring a 21.72-carat cabochon Kashmir sapphire ring went for $1.7 million, while a necklace with an 80.86-carat Burma sapphire in the center fetched $1.1 million. Meanwhile, a Cartier brooch set with an Art Deco Kashmir sapphire weighing 12.64 carats, formerly from the collection of Jean Stralem, realized $1.5 million.
Other highlights included a pair of earrings containing fancy-intense-purplish-pink and fancy-intense-pink diamonds, weighing 2.61 and 2.34 carats. The piece sold for $2.1 million.
The auction preceded the Sotheby’s New York Magnificent Jewels sale, which takes place Wednesday. A ring featuring a fancy-vivid-pink diamond flanked by two fancy-intense-blue diamonds — estimated at up to $12 million — will headline that event.
