Set in an 18-carat gold ring, the marquise-shaped 1.03-carat natural fancy vivid pink stone is surrounded by approximately 0.43 carats of brilliant cut, near colourless diamonds.
According to Sotheby’s Australia, which has been assigned to sell the ring at its Important Jewels auction in Melbourne on Tuesday 12 May, the diamond is one of the first recorded pink diamonds weighing more than one carat to have been retrieved from the East Kimberley region in Western Australia.
William Leslie, one of the founding directors of Ashton Mining and a member of the Ashton Joint Venture, purchased the stone in the rough in 1981. Later that year, it was polished and made into a ring in London under the supervision of Australian jeweller and goldsmith Stuart Devlin.
Ashton Mining and the Ashton Joint Venture have been credited as playing key roles in the discovery and commercialisation of diamonds in the East Kimberley region during the 1970s.
The diamond was sourced while the group were in the exploration phase, undertaking a feasibility study for the commercial viability of a mine. Rio Tinto took over management of Ashton Mining in 1976, and now markets diamonds sourced from the region as Argyle diamonds.
“It is very rare for fancy vivid pink diamonds to come to the secondary market,” Sotheby’s Australia chairman Geoffrey Smith told Jeweller. “It is an honour to be entrusted with the sale of a gemstone with such a unique collection history as this East Kimberley pink diamond.”
The pink diamond is expected to fetch between $330,000 and $530,000.
The Important Jewels sale will also include the 35.73-carat Willows sapphire, said to be the largest natural yellow sapphire to ever be offered at auction in Australia.
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