https://stonesandsociety.com/ The latest stories from Stones & Society: high jewelry, gemstones, houses, collecting, auctions and society. en https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/sothebys-royal-noble-jewels-geneva-november-2026/ https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/sothebys-royal-noble-jewels-geneva-november-2026/ Mon, 19 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Sotheby's Royal and Noble Jewels sale in Geneva on 11 November is built on provenance: a Cartier black opal jewel made for a Duchess of Devonshire, a Mellerio tiara unaccounted for since 1957, and the emerald jewels of a Queen of Portugal. https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/christies-jewels-online-new-york-october-2026/ https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/christies-jewels-online-new-york-october-2026/ Mon, 19 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Christie's Jewels Online in New York made $9.32 million from 266 lots between 6 and 15 October. A Graff ring led, the no reserve headline diamond fell short of its low estimate, and the sharpest bidding was reserved for Bulgari. https://stonesandsociety.com/society/van-cleef-arpels-couture-repertoire-geneva-2026/ https://stonesandsociety.com/society/van-cleef-arpels-couture-repertoire-geneva-2026/ Mon, 19 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Until 31 March 2027, the Van Cleef and Arpels boutique on the Rue du Rhone is showing nineteen creations from the maison's own Collection, each one an argument that jewellery begins as dressmaking: lace, belts, bows and cloth, translated into gold. https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/boucheron-in-focus-christies-new-york-2026/ https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/boucheron-in-focus-christies-new-york-2026/ Mon, 12 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700 At Christie's Rockefeller Center galleries until 18 October, Boucheron sets out its whole history as an argument: more than 80 creations from 1858 to today, arranged not by year but by the four ideas that have always organised the maison, couture, nature, architecture and innovation. https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/argyle-pink-diamonds-boodles-2026/ https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/argyle-pink-diamonds-boodles-2026/ Mon, 12 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Rio Tinto has sold its remaining Argyle pink diamond inventory, and the Argyle Pink Diamonds brand itself, to the British jeweller Boodles. The mine closed in 2020; the stones that are left will now be released slowly, over about a decade, starting with a high jewellery collection in 2027. https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/audemars-piguet-royal-oak-joaillerie/ https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/audemars-piguet-royal-oak-joaillerie/ Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Fifty-four years after Gérald Genta's icon made steel precious, Audemars Piguet has taken the Royal Oak's bracelet off the wrist and rebuilt it as high jewellery: nineteen pieces, three lines, no watch in sight. https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/dior-diorissima-chapter-two/ https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/dior-diorissima-chapter-two/ Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700 The second chapter of Dior's 141-piece high jewellery collection has arrived, closing Victoire de Castellane's triptych of gardens, oceans and constellations. Behind the collage of doublets and lacquer sits a forgotten story: Christian Dior the art dealer. https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/christies-geneva-connoisseur-collection-november-2026/ https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/christies-geneva-connoisseur-collection-november-2026/ Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700 On 10 November, Christie's devotes a live sale and a simultaneous online auction to one collection: nearly 300 jewels, Art Deco cases and gold boxes assembled over four decades, expected to realize more than $25 million. A preview, plus a correction to the calendar. https://stonesandsociety.com/society/habsburg-jewels-quebec-geneva-2026/ https://stonesandsociety.com/society/habsburg-jewels-quebec-geneva-2026/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 The 137-carat Florentine Diamond, missing for a century, is on public view for the first time in Quebec City. Three years ago, a separate Habsburg collection went under the hammer in Geneva. Two vaults, two cities, one family's jewels. https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/hope-diamond-smithsonian/ https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/hope-diamond-smithsonian/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 The most famous diamond in the world has been at the Smithsonian since Harry Winston donated it in 1958. Its blue comes from boron, its setting history runs through Cartier, and its paper trail starts with Tavernier in the seventeenth century. https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/oppenheimer-blue-christies-geneva-2016/ https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/oppenheimer-blue-christies-geneva-2016/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 In May 2016 at Christie's Geneva, a 14.62-carat fancy vivid blue diamond sold for about US$57.5 million including premium. A decade on, it is still the benchmark for blue diamonds at auction. https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/mikimoto-cultured-pearl/ https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/mikimoto-cultured-pearl/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 In 1893 Kokichi Mikimoto produced the first cultured pearls; by 1905 he had round ones. The GIA's account of the Japanese cultured pearl is the story of how a natural accident became an industry. https://stonesandsociety.com/society/pearl-divers-japan/ https://stonesandsociety.com/society/pearl-divers-japan/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Before the cultured pearl there were the ama, the divers, overwhelmingly women, who freedove for oysters. Mikimoto's industry was built on their labour, and photographed by agencies like Agence Rol in its early years. https://stonesandsociety.com/collecting/cheapside-hoard-london-1912/ https://stonesandsociety.com/collecting/cheapside-hoard-london-1912/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 In 1912 workmen at 30-32 Cheapside uncovered more than 400 Elizabethan and Jacobean jewels, buried four centuries earlier. Most are now at the Museum of London, with pieces at the British Museum and the V&A. https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/black-princes-ruby-spinel/ https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/black-princes-ruby-spinel/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 It sits in the frontal cross of the Imperial State Crown, and it is not a ruby at all but a 170-carat red spinel. The legends of 1367 and Agincourt are reported history; the mineralogy is certain. https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/australian-opal-fields-guide/ https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/australian-opal-fields-guide/ Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Australia produces the world's great opals, and each field has a signature: Lightning Ridge for black opal, Queensland for boulder opal, Coober Pedy for white opal. The GIA's field guides are the starting point. https://stonesandsociety.com/jewels/van-cleef-arpels-mystery-set/ https://stonesandsociety.com/jewels/van-cleef-arpels-mystery-set/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 No visible metal, rails thinner than two-tenths of a millimetre, and a patent lineage reaching back to 1933. The Mystery Set is the rare technique that collectors now price like a gemstone. https://stonesandsociety.com/jewels/patiala-necklace-cartier-1928/ https://stonesandsociety.com/jewels/patiala-necklace-cartier-1928/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 2,930 diamonds at 962.25 carats around a 234.69-carat De Beers diamond, then fifty years of silence. The 1928 Patiala necklace has a documented arc, and everything outside the archive is lore. https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/lab-grown-diamonds-price-of-brilliance/ https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/lab-grown-diamonds-price-of-brilliance/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Laboratory-grown diamonds now sit in a majority of new American engagement rings while costing a fraction of natural stones, and GIA has stopped describing them with natural grading language. The science of separation, the shifting report vocabulary, and the 2026 price reality. https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/sapphire-origin-science/ https://stonesandsociety.com/stones/sapphire-origin-science/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 A Kashmir pedigree can multiply a sapphire's price beyond what beauty explains. Inside the laboratories, origin is an opinion built from inclusions, spectra and chemistry, and the science stops short of certainty. https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/cartier-visual-language-rue-de-la-paix/ https://stonesandsociety.com/houses/cartier-visual-language-rue-de-la-paix/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Platinum construction, Art Deco geometry, Tutti Frutti, the panther. Cartier's design vocabulary survived three generations of a family and a corporate handover, largely because the house institutionalized its own archive. https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/mellon-blue-christies-geneva-november-2025/ https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/mellon-blue-christies-geneva-november-2025/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 The highest-value jewellery lot sold at auction anywhere in 2025, and the first reappearance of a stone that set the world record for a blue diamond in 2014. The $7 million gap between those two prices is one of the sharpest documented corrections for a named blue diamond. https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/marie-therese-pink-christies-new-york-2025/ https://stonesandsociety.com/auctions/marie-therese-pink-christies-new-york-2025/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 A stone with documented French royal provenance, off the market since 1996, reset by the most secretive name in contemporary jewellery. The Marie-Therese Pink made nearly three times its high estimate and set two world records. https://stonesandsociety.com/society/met-jewellery-body-transformed-hong-kong-2026/ https://stonesandsociety.com/society/met-jewellery-body-transformed-hong-kong-2026/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0700 Two hundred masterpieces, five continents, nearly 4,000 years, and the first major travelling showcase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's jewellery collection. On view at the Hong Kong Palace Museum until 19 October 2026.