November 2023
The Bleu Royal Commands Roughly $44 Million at Christie's Geneva
The Bleu Royal, a 17.61-carat fancy vivid blue diamond, sold at Christie's Geneva in November 2023 for approximately US$44 million, ranking among the most valuable blue diamonds ever offered at auction. Making its first appearance at auction, it was one of the largest fancy vivid blue diamonds of its kind to reach the sale room in decades.
Blue diamonds owe their color to trace quantities of boron and are classified as Type IIb, a category comprising less than 0.1% of all gem diamonds. Christie's specialists noted that vivid blue diamonds of this size and classification appear at auction with decreasing frequency as historic stones consolidate into long-term private holdings, creating intensifying scarcity at the very top of the market and reinforcing Geneva's position as the world's leading marketplace for exceptional colored diamonds.