'Aga Khan' Emerald Makes Triumphant Return to Christie's Geneva After 55 Years

The 37-carat "Aga Khan" emerald made a triumphant return to Christie's Geneva after a 55-year hiatus, smashing the all-time record for the most expensive emerald ever to be sold at auction.

The unusually transparent and evenly colored square-cut stone sold for $8.85 million, eclipsing the pre-sale high estimate by more than 10% and the previous record holder by 36%.

Relegated to second place on the list of the priciest emeralds sold at auction is actress Elizabeth Taylor’s emerald-and-diamond brooch by Bulgari, which had achieved $6.5 million at auction in 2011.

The Aga Khan emerald, which is set into a brooch/pendant and surrounded by marquise-shaped diamonds, was originally commissioned by Prince Aga Khan for his wife, Nina Dyer, in 1960, and then sold to Van Cleef & Arpels for $75,000 at Christie’s inaugural Magnificent Jewels event in Geneva in 1969.

Francois Curiel, now Chairman of Christie’s Europe, but in 1969 a 21-year-old Christie's intern-to-be, remembered the excitement of seeing the Aga Khan emerald at the event: “The emerald was breathtaking 55 years ago and is even more admired today. It is so rare to see a jewel of its size and quality and I feel privileged to have had the winning bidder on the phone 55 years later, here in Geneva in 2024.”

“The emerald brooch is not just a piece of jewelry," commented Max Fawcett, Christie’s Head of Jewelry Europe. "It carries with it the stories and charm of a bygone era.”

In the lead up to last week's auction, Curiel called the Aga Khan "one of the rarest treasures on Earth."

"We might see an emerald of this quality come up for sale once every five or six years,” he said at the time.

After Dyer's untimely death in 1969, Aga Khan put her jewelry up for auction, as stipulated in her will, with the proceeds going to benefit animal welfare.

While the Aga Khan established a new price record for an emerald sold at auction, the 18.04-carat Rockefeller emerald retains the price-per-carat record, according to nationaljeweler.com. The publication noted that luxury jeweler Harry Winston paid $5.5 million, or $305,000 per carat for that stone in 2017. The Aga Khan emerald's price per carat amounted to just under $240,000.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Christie’s.