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Stones & Society

High jewelry · Gemstones · Collecting

Stones & Society

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Current editorial coverage across jewels, stones, houses, collecting, auctions and society.

  • The leading lots of the Sotheby's Royal and Noble Jewels sale grouped together: the Mellerio meander tiara, the Devonshire black opal necklace, Queen Amelie's emerald brooch and bangle, the Hennell pearl necklace and signed Bulgari jewels

    Auctions

    Two Tiaras and a Queen's Emeralds: Royal and Noble Jewels Return to Geneva

    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.

    2026-10-19

  • The Graff diamond ring worn on a hand and shown as a product view: a square emerald cut diamond of 7.85 carats between tapered baguette diamonds

    Auctions

    Signed Jewels Beat the Big Diamonds: Christie's New York Online Sale, Read Closely

    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.

    2026-10-19

  • The Ludo hexagon bracelet of 1939 in yellow gold, its honeycomb mesh set with rubies and its buckle mystery set with rubies

    Society

    A Couture Repertoire: Van Cleef and Arpels Takes Its Own Measure in Geneva

    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.

    2026-10-19

  • A Boucheron necklace of carved pale leaves edged with diamonds

    Houses

    Boucheron in Focus: 168 Years, Four Ideas, One Room in New York

    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.

    2026-10-12

  • Six Argyle tender hero diamonds in pink and blue tones on a pink ground

    Stones

    The Last Argyle Pinks Have a New Keeper: Boodles

    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.

    2026-10-12

  • The Dream of Joux tie necklace in anodized blue titanium and 18k white gold, with pear-shaped diamonds and snow-set blue sapphires, worn at the neck

    Houses

    The Bracelet That Left the Watch: Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak Joaillerie

    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.

    2026-10-05

  • The Diorissima Nuage Heureux necklace with opal-on-turquoise doublet clouds and a yellow sapphire sun

    Houses

    Diorissima Complete: Victoire de Castellane's Garden Grows Into the Sky

    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.

    2026-10-05

  • The David Morris ring with a 14.63 carat fancy orangy-pink diamond

    Auctions

    November in Geneva: Christie's Bets the Month on a Single Collector

    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.

    2026-10-05

  • The Florentine Diamond, a 137-carat yellow diamond, photographed for its first public exhibition

    Society

    The Habsburgs' Autumn: A Legendary Diamond Comes Out of the Vault

    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.

    2026-09-28

  • The Hope Diamond on display at the Smithsonian

    Stones

    The Hope Diamond: 45.52 Carats of Boron Blue

    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.

    2026-09-25

  • The 14.62-carat Oppenheimer Blue diamond ring

    Auctions

    The Oppenheimer Blue: The $57.5 Million Vivid Blue

    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.

    2026-09-25

  • Portrait of Kokichi Mikimoto

    Houses

    Mikimoto: The Man Who Cultured the Pearl

    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.

    2026-09-25

  • Pearl oyster culture in Japan, early twentieth century

    Society

    The Divers Behind the Pearls

    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.

    2026-09-25

  • An enamelled gold necklace from the Cheapside Hoard at the V&A

    Collecting

    The Cheapside Hoard: London's Buried Treasure

    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.

    2026-09-25

  • The Imperial State Crown

    Stones

    The Black Prince's 'Ruby': The 170-Carat Spinel That Isn't a Ruby

    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.

    2026-09-25

  • A natural opal gemstone set in a silver ring

    Stones

    Lightning Ridge, Coober Pedy, Queensland: Reading Australian Opal by Field

    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.

    2026-09-25

  • The Mystery Set Peony Clip, 1937, by Van Cleef and Arpels, photographed on exhibition

    Jewels

    Serti Mystérieux: The Invisible Architecture of Van Cleef & Arpels

    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.

    2026-09-23

  • The 1928 Cartier Patiala necklace on display

    Jewels

    The Patiala Necklace: Cartier's Lost Masterwork and Its Honest Ghost

    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.

    2026-09-23

  • Two laboratory-grown diamonds

    Stones

    Grown, Not Mined: Lab Diamonds and the New Price of Brilliance

    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.

    2026-09-23

  • The Star of India, a 563.35-carat star sapphire, held at the American Museum of Natural History

    Stones

    The Origin Detectives: How Science Reads a Sapphire's Birthplace

    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.

    2026-09-23

  • Lithograph by Sem showing a crowd outside the Cartier boutique at 13 Rue de la Paix, Paris

    Houses

    The Cartier Visual Language: From Rue de la Paix to the Panthère

    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.

    2026-09-23

  • The Mellon Blue fancy vivid blue diamond ring

    Auctions

    The Mellon Blue: $25.6 Million and the New Economics of Blue Diamonds

    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.

    2026-09-23

  • Portrait of Marie-Therese Charlotte of France, Duchess of Angouleme, painted by Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller in 1786

    Auctions

    A Royal Pink Diamond Triples Its Estimate: The Marie-Therese Pink at Christie's New York

    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.

    2026-09-23

  • The Hong Kong Palace Museum building

    Society

    The Body Transformed: The Met's Jewellery Travels to Hong Kong

    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.

    2026-09-23