The rare pink diamond that is “internally flawless”

A rare colored diamond with a literally rich history sold at auction in Geneva for a record-breaking $26.6 million (24.4 Swiss francs) as the most expensive purple-pink diamond ever sold. The unique pink diamond named The Spirit of the Rose has a unique underlying purple hue with an oval cut of the 14.83-carat stone.

The diamond was named after a 1911 Russian ballet “Le Spectre de la rose” as the pink diamond was found in northeast Russia by the Alrosa mining company in 2017. The Spirit of the Rose was cut from an even bigger stone with the uncut 27.85 diamond found in Sakha, Russia making it the largest pink diamond ever found in the origin country.

It took roughly one year to cut and polish the final stone before being ready for auction. The chairman of the jewelry division for Sotheby’s, Gary Schuler, disclosed that the jewel was graded as “internally flawless” of the rare subgroup of diamonds.

The grading scale was also rare for this unique pink diamond as only 4 percent of pink diamonds are graded ‘Fancy Vivid’ and only 1 percent of pink diamonds are larger than 10 carats. Sotheby’s estimated a high auction price for the rare pink diamond but the sale displays the growing appreciation of the rare pink diamonds around the world.