Christie’s sold a 14.2 carat diamond dubbed “The Perfect Pink” for an eye-popping $23 million on Monday, setting what the auction house described as a record for Asia.
An unidentified buyer stumped up the huge price tag for the rectangular pink diamond at a jewellery auction in Hong Kong which garnered a total of $78.9 million, Christie’s said.
“Leading the sale was the extraordinary Perfect Pink, a rare 14.23 carat Fancy Intense Pink diamond,” the auction house said, calling it “the most expensive jewel ever sold at auction in Asia”.
“The Perfect Pink is a phenomenon in the world of gems,” it said.
The diamond’s pre-sale high estimate was about $19 million.
In 2009, a five-carat chickpea-sized vivid pink gem set a per-carat world record price for a diamond when it fetched $10.8 million at an auction in Hong Kong.
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‘Women not treated as dolls in Bollywood’
Panaji: Freida Pinto, who made it to Hollywood after the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, says women are not treated like dolls in Bollywood and she is certainly game for a Hindi movie if a good one comes along. “Women are not treated like dolls in Bollywood,” said Freida on the sidelines of the 41st International Film Festival of India, where her film You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger directed by Woody Allen, is being screened. —IANS