The Most Expensive Jewelry in the World, Cut to the Chase

What makes one ruby ring cost more than a Ferrari dealership? Cartier’s Sunrise Ruby, named for a Rumi poem, sold for about $30.3 million at Sotheby’s Geneva in 2015.

Marie Antoinette’s pendant of pearl and diamond, smuggled out of France during the Revolution in 1791, sold for $36.2 million. Cartier’s Hutton-Mdivani jadeite necklace, given as a wedding gift in 1933, brought more than $27.4 million. Even a tiara estimated at $60,000 to $80,000 climbed past $4.2 million, because Elizabeth Taylor had worn it.

This ranking counts real hammer prices, paid in the room. The $71.2 million Pink Star most people have heard quoted is a loose diamond rather than a finished jewel, so it lives in our guide to the most expensive diamonds; Wallace Chan’s $200 million necklace has never gone to auction, and no one has ever bid on it, so the never-sold pieces get their own section further down.

The list is below. If the unset stones are what you are after, they live in our most valuable gemstones and most expensive diamonds guides.

The most expensive jewelry ever sold at auction

1. Marie Antoinette natural pearl and diamond pendant

A single drop-shaped natural pearl, close to an inch long, hangs beneath a diamond bow. It sold for CHF 36,427,000, about $36.2 million, at Sotheby’s Geneva in November 2018. The estimate had been $2 million.

The pendant belonged to Marie Antoinette, and it left France with her wardrobe when the jewels were smuggled out during the Revolution in 1791. It passed down through the Bourbon-Parma family, one of Europe’s oldest royal houses, and stayed private for two centuries before the sale titled “Royal Jewels from the Bourbon Parma Family.” Natural pearls of this size and quality are effectively unrepeatable, since the oyster beds that produced them were fished out generations ago. The royal provenance, and the queen’s execution, are why the pendant remains the most expensive piece of finished jewelry ever sold at auction.

The record it holds: the highest price ever paid for a natural pearl.

2. The Sunrise Ruby ring, Cartier

A ruby is rarer than a diamond of comparable size, and the Sunrise Ruby is the finest most people will ever see. The 25.59-carat Burmese stone carries the “pigeon’s blood” red that gemologists treat as the top grade, and Cartier set it as a ring between two shield-shaped white diamonds. It sold for CHF 28,250,000, about $30.3 million, at Sotheby’s Geneva in May 2015, more than $12 million above the high estimate.

The name comes from a poem by the 13th-century Persian mystic Rumi, “The Sunrise Ruby.” Burma stopped producing rubies of this caliber long ago, and no treated or reconstructed stone comes close. Bidding stayed high because no comparable stone exists.

The record it holds: the highest price and the highest price per carat ever paid for a ruby.

3. The Hutton-Mdivani jadeite necklace, Cartier

Twenty-seven jadeite beads, graduated and matched to the same deep imperial green, make up this necklace, finished with a Cartier clasp of rubies and diamonds. It sold for more than $27.4 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in April 2014, over double its estimate, and the buyer was the Cartier Collection itself.

Barbara Hutton got it from her father, the Woolworth heir Franklyn Hutton, as a wedding gift in 1933 when she married Prince Alexis Mdivani. She wore it first at her twenty-first birthday. Imperial jadeite of this translucency comes from a single region of Myanmar and almost never appears in beads this large and this evenly colored. Jade at the very top of the market outprices most diamonds.

The record it holds: the highest price ever paid for jadeite jewelry, and for a Cartier jewel.

4. The Blue Belle of Asia sapphire necklace

The Blue Belle of Asia is a 392.52-carat cushion-cut Ceylon sapphire, cornflower blue and untreated, suspended from a diamond tassel on a diamond and white gold necklace. It sold for $17,305,996 at Christie’s Geneva in November 2014, nearly twice the high estimate.

The stone was found in Sri Lanka in 1926 and was once said to be destined for the British motoring magnate Lord Nuffield. Untreated sapphires above a few hundred carats with even color are close to unique, and this one has never been bettered at auction.

The record it holds: the highest price ever paid for a sapphire.

5. The Henckel von Donnersmarck emerald tiara

Eleven pear-shaped Colombian emeralds, weighing more than 500 carats between them, sit across a diamond tiara made around 1900. It sold for CHF 11,282,500, about $12.7 million, at Sotheby’s Geneva in May 2011, with six bidders chasing it.

The tiara was made for Katharina Henckel von Donnersmarck, a German princess, and the emeralds are old-mine Colombian stones of a depth of color that modern production rarely matches. It is the most expensive tiara ever sold at auction.

The record it holds: the highest price ever paid for a tiara.

6. La Peregrina pearl necklace, Cartier

La Peregrina is a pear-shaped natural pearl discovered in the 16th century, and its owners read like a history of European royalty, from the Spanish crown to Mary Tudor. Richard Burton bought it for Elizabeth Taylor in 1969, and Taylor worked with Al Durante of Cartier to build it into a necklace of rubies, pearls and diamonds. The necklace sold for $11,842,500 at Christie’s New York in December 2011, at the sale of her estate.

The pearl carries four centuries of royal ownership, and the necklace carries Taylor, whose collection remains the benchmark for celebrity jewelry at auction. The record it holds: it was the most expensive pearl jewel ever sold until Marie Antoinette’s pendant passed it in 2018.

7. The Graff Ruby ring

The Graff Ruby is an 8.62-carat Burmese stone that Laurence Graff called “the finest ruby in the world,” and he bought it twice. Set as a ring, it sold for about $8.6 million at Sotheby’s Geneva in November 2014, from the collection of the Greek financier Dimitri Mavrommatis.

At $997,727 per carat it set the per-carat record for a ruby. This stone weighs a third of the Sunrise Ruby, yet its color and purity carried it into the millions on their own.

The record it holds: the highest price per carat ever paid for a ruby.

8. The Baroda Pearls necklace

The Baroda Pearls are a two-strand necklace of 68 matched natural pearls, and they are the survivors of something larger. The Maharajas of Baroda owned a legendary seven-strand necklace of roughly 300 pearls, and this necklace was assembled from the finest of them. It sold for $7,096,000 at Christie’s New York in April 2007.

Matching natural pearls for size, shape and luster across even two strands is the work of a lifetime, and the Baroda strands are the best surviving example. The sale more than doubled the previous record for a natural pearl necklace.

The record it holds: at the time, the highest price ever paid for a natural pearl necklace.

9. The Duchess of Windsor panther bracelet, Cartier

Cartier built this articulated panther in 1952 for Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. The body is paved with diamonds and calibre-cut onyx and coils to sit around the wrist as if the cat were stalking, with a marquise emerald for each eye. It sold for £4,521,250, about $7 million, at Sotheby’s London in November 2010.

The panther is the single most recognizable motif in Cartier’s history, and this is the piece that made it famous. The Duchess of Windsor commissioned some of the house’s boldest work, and her jewels carry the added weight of the abdication story behind them.

The record it holds: at the time, the highest price ever paid for a bracelet and for any Cartier jewel.

10. The Elizabeth Taylor Bulgari emerald brooch

Richard Burton gave Elizabeth Taylor this Bulgari emerald and diamond pendant brooch during the filming of “Cleopatra” in the early 1960s, and it became the centerpiece of her Bulgari suite. The octagonal Colombian emerald is framed in diamonds and can hang from a necklace or pin to the chest. It sold for about $6.6 million at Christie’s New York in December 2011.

Taylor once said the only word Bulgari understood was “no,” which she rarely used. The brooch is the most famous single piece from a suite that Burton bought her across several years, and it set the per-carat emerald record until the Rockefeller stone passed it.

The record it holds: at the time, the highest price per carat ever paid for an emerald.

11. The Rockefeller Emerald ring

The Rockefeller Emerald is an 18.04-carat octagonal Colombian stone, set in a platinum ring designed by Raymond Yard. It came from the family of John D. Rockefeller Jr., and it sold for $5,511,500 at Christie’s New York in June 2017. The buyer was the jeweler Harry Winston, who renamed it the Rockefeller-Winston.

At $305,000 per carat it took the per-carat emerald record from Elizabeth Taylor’s Bulgari brooch. American industrial dynasties, not only European royalty, built jewel collections that still set records.

The record it holds: the highest price per carat ever paid for an emerald.

12. The Elizabeth Taylor Mike Todd tiara

An antique diamond tiara from around 1880, this was a wedding present from the producer Mike Todd to Elizabeth Taylor in 1957. Taylor wore it to the Academy Awards, and it stayed one of her favorite pieces. It sold for $4,226,500 at Christie’s New York in December 2011, against an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000.

The stones are fine but not extraordinary. A tiara valued in the tens of thousands sold for more than $4 million because Elizabeth Taylor had worn it. The record it holds: none on its own.

13. The Cartier Tutti Frutti bracelet

Cartier’s Tutti Frutti style carves sapphires, emeralds and rubies into leaves and berries, a look the house borrowed from Mughal India in the 1920s and 1930s. This Art Deco bracelet, made around 1930, sold for $1.34 million at Sotheby’s in April 2020, after passing down through one American family for more than thirty years.

The sale was held entirely online, during the first weeks of the pandemic lockdown, and it still set a record. It is the cheapest piece on this list and in some ways the most instructive, because its value is design rather than a single great stone.

The record it holds: the highest price for any jewel sold in an online auction, and the highest for any jewel at auction that year.

The pieces that never sold

Every ranking above is a hammer price. The figures below are valuations. A jeweler, a record book or an insurer attached a number to a piece, and no buyer has ever paid it at public auction. These jewels are real, and they are extraordinary. None of those prices has ever been paid at auction.

Wallace Chan, “A Heritage in Bloom,” valued at $200 million. The Hong Kong artist Wallace Chan set this necklace with 11,551 diamonds, including a 104-carat centerpiece cut from the 507.55-carat Cullinan Heritage rough. It took more than 47,000 hours to make and can be worn 27 ways. It has never gone to auction, and no one has ever bid on it.

The Graff Peacock Brooch, valued at around $100 million. Graff unveiled this jewelled peacock in 2013, its fanned tail set with more than 1,300 gemstones and a large blue diamond at its heart. It is one of the most valuable brooches ever made, though no public sale has ever confirmed the number.

The Mouawad L’Incomparable necklace, valued at $55 million. Guinness World Records certified this as the most valuable necklace in the world, built around the 407.48-carat Incomparable, the largest internally flawless diamond ever graded. The $55 million is the maker’s valuation, and it has never been set by a public auction.

The Victoria’s Secret “Red Hot” Fantasy Bra, valued at $15 million. In 2000 the lingerie brand covered a bra in 300 carats of Thai rubies and diamonds, worn on the runway by Gisele Bündchen, and listed it at $15 million. It was offered for sale by catalog, and no one bought it.

The houses behind the records

Five names appear again and again at the top of the jewelry market, and their pieces set records for reasons that go beyond a brand ranking. For that, we keep a separate guide to the best jewelry brands.

Cartier owns more of the list above than any other house. The Hutton-Mdivani jade, La Peregrina, the Windsor panther, the Sunrise Ruby and the Tutti Frutti bracelet are all Cartier. Bulgari built Elizabeth Taylor’s emeralds and much of the bold, color-forward look that defines mid-century Italian jewelry. Van Cleef & Arpels is the master of the invisible setting and the transformable jewel, and its high-jewelry pieces trade heavily on the secondary market. Harry Winston, the “King of Diamonds,” bought the Rockefeller Emerald and has handled more famous stones than any other American jeweler. Graff acquires and cuts many of the world’s most important rough diamonds, and Laurence Graff has a habit of buying back his own records, as he did with the Graff Ruby.

What makes a piece sell for this much

Four things move a jewel from expensive to record-breaking, and only one of them is the stone.

Stone quality has to clear a threshold before anything else matters. A ruby has to be Burmese and untreated, a sapphire has to be Kashmir or Ceylon with even color, an emerald has to be old-mine Colombian, and a pearl has to be natural rather than cultured. A stone that misses that threshold has nothing else going for it, while one that clears it lets the other factors take over.

Provenance multiplies the price. The Mike Todd tiara is the cleanest proof. The tiara’s fine diamonds carried an estimate of $60,000 and sold for $4.2 million, almost all of it because Elizabeth Taylor wore it. A named previous owner, especially a queen, a duchess or a screen icon, can double a result on its own. Marie Antoinette, Barbara Hutton, the Duchess of Windsor and Taylor account for six of the thirteen jewels above.

Rarity you cannot recreate matters more than size. The oyster beds that made natural pearls are gone. Burma no longer produces pigeon’s blood rubies at volume. A stone that can never be found again behaves differently at auction from one that could, in theory, be matched next year.

Single-owner sales concentrate demand. When a whole collection carries one famous name, as with the Bourbon Parma, Windsor and Taylor sales, every lot benefits from the story around it, and bidders compete for a piece of the provenance as much as the piece itself. If you want the buyable end of the same instinct, we cover the most expensive engagement rings separately.

What you can actually buy

Almost nothing on this page is for sale, and nothing on it is buyable at these prices. You can reach the same houses at the other end of their range, either new or on the secondary market, where the design language that produced these records still shows up at prices a collector might actually pay.

Cartier: The panther and Tutti Frutti heritage, at resale prices

The resale market is the place to start, because the houses that set auction records hold their value best. A pre-owned Cartier piece carries the same panther and Tutti Frutti heritage that runs through this list.

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Van Cleef & Arpels: The invisible setting, still transformable

Van Cleef & Arpels built its name on the invisible setting and the transformable jewel, and its pre-owned pieces are among the most sought-after on the resale market.

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Tiffany & Co.: The more accessible end of the group

Tiffany & Co. is at the more accessible end of this group, and its pre-owned diamonds and silver carry a house pedigree that goes back to the great yellow Tiffany Diamond.

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If you would rather browse widely, the secondary market lists authenticated pieces from most of the houses above in one place, and it is the fastest way to compare what a given maker’s work costs once it leaves the boutique. For new pieces, a good fine jewelry selection covers the designers who will fill the next generation of auction catalogs.