Hello, yellow! The Sienna Star, one of the largest fancy vivid yellow diamonds ever to be auctioned, sold for a whopping $3.4 million at Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels auction in New York City on June 9.
The 73.11 ct. step-cut diamond was originally purchased as a piece of rough by London-based high jeweler Glenn Spiro, who ultimately set the gem into an extraordinary white diamond–set, flexible ring of his own design. Spiro, who established his own maison, simply called G, in 2014 on Mayfair’s Bruton Street, named the stone and the ring after his daughter Sienna.
With its sale, the Sienna Star enters the sparse ranks of fancy vivid yellows that have sold for more than a million at auction. The largest fancy vivid yellow diamond ever sold was the 100.09 ct. Graff vivid yellow diamond, which set an auction record when it sold for $16.3 million at Sotheby’s in 2014. The Sienna Star was expected to sell for upward of $3 million (goal achieved).
According to GIA, fancy colored yellow diamonds represent a small ratio of overall diamond production, and yellows are graded as “fancy” when they fall outside the D-to-Z range (colorless to light yellow).
The presence of nitrogen is what causes a diamond to appear yellow, and the intensity of its yellow color depends on how much nitrogen is present in the gem.
Top: The Sienna Star diamond and ring (all photos courtesy of Sotheby’s)
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