London Awash In Purple For Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee

June 4th, 2013 by Noam Flint

This past Tuesday the auction house Christie’s broke yet another diamond sales record, this time in Hong Kong. In recent months, people have been willing to pay Christie’s exorbitant prices for some of the largest and rarest diamonds in circulation at public sales in New York and Geneva. Last week the firm earned an extra $11 million when it auctioned off a magnificent jewel, a marquise-cut purplish-pink diamond pendant necklace with a massive 75-carat type IIa briolette diamond suspended from it. We often hear about pinks in the news but we hardly ever hear about purples – even if just as secondary hue!

While most of the world glazed on the centerpiece 75.36 carat D Internally Flawless Briollete, we were mesmerized by the purplish pink diamond above it. Images by Christies

But it’s only fitting that purple make it into the headlines this week, since this upcoming Tuesday marks 60 years since the coronation of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth, who owns one of the largest and most amazing diamond collections in the world. Throughout the world, purple is the color of royalty, and today the city of London is awash with purple and gold banners to mark the reign of the British monarch. 60th anniversaries are considered to be diamond anniversaries, so the royal jewels are also being feted to honor the occasion.

King and Queens of England have worn crowns embedded with diamonds for five hundred years now. The first of these, the Tudor State Crown, contains 28 diamonds and is valued today at about $2.6 million, while the last of these, the Imperial State Crown, includes no less than 2,868 diamonds, including the infamous Cullinan II. The Crown of Queen Elizabeth, made for the late Queen Mother, includes the also-infamous Koh-i-Noor diamond. In addition to their crowns, the British royals also own a three-and-a-half-century-old scepter, which was refurbished a century ago to include the astounding 530-carat Cullinan I.

It is also a little known fact that on the day of Elizabeth II’s original coronation ceremony in 1953, word was received that a British team became the first humans to ascend to the peak of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Do you think the House of Windsor have some other exciting news of great significance that they’re waiting to surprise us with this Tuesday?

For more information about the 75.36 carat briollete and purplish pink mq sold by Christies, click here