The Bulgari Pink Diamond Ring: A 24-Carat Highlight At Christie’s Geneva
A 24-carat fancy intense pink diamond set by Bulgari sold at Christie's Geneva for 12.1 million Swiss francs, mid-estimate, after 70 years with one noble family.
Christie’s called it the Mona Lisa of pink diamonds, and the hammer fell at CHF 12,086,000. The Bulgari Pink diamond ring, 24 carats of fancy intense pink, had spent 70 years with one noble family before Geneva.
The sale took place on November 10. Max Fawcett, the house’s global head of jewellery, had used the Mona Lisa line before the auction, so Christie’s kept the ring for last. It closed the Magnificent Jewels sale at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues, where it had been on view from November 5 to 10. Afterward Fawcett said the ring ended the house’s Geneva run on a high. He also cited strong global demand. Sources: CP24 and Galerie Magazine.
What is the Bulgari Pink diamond ring?
The stone is an emerald cut of type IIa, a category that makes up fewer than 2 per cent of gem-quality diamonds. Family history says the uncut stone came from India in the 1950s, and Bulgari in Rome turned it into the ring. Tapered baguette-cut diamonds and a platinum setting frame the stone, which carries an association with India’s Golconda region. It had never come to auction before Geneva. Details come from Haute Living.
How much did the Bulgari Pink diamond ring sell for?
Christie’s had put the estimate at 10 million to 15 million Swiss francs, or US$12 million to US$18 million. The hammer landed mid-range. In US dollars it passed US$14.6 million, according to CTV News. Spread over 24 carats, our own arithmetic puts it at about 504,000 Swiss francs, or US$608,000, per carat.
Why did the Bulgari Pink cost less per carat than the Fortune Pink?
The Fortune Pink gives the cleanest comparison. It weighed 18.18 carats. It sold at Christie’s Geneva in November 2022 for US$28.8 million, according to Jewellery News Asia. That works out to about US$1.58 million per carat, more than two and a half times the Bulgari Pink’s rate. But the two stones carry different grades. The Fortune Pink was a fancy vivid pear shape, one grade above the Bulgari Pink. So colour saturation likely explains a large share of the gap. Four years and two cuts also separate the sales, so treat the ratio as a guide.
| Stone | Grade | Weight | Per carat (our calculation) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bulgari Pink, November 2026 | Fancy intense pink | 24.00 ct | About US$608,000 |
| Fortune Pink, November 2022 | Fancy vivid pink | 18.18 ct | About US$1.58 million |
Why are pink diamonds so scarce?
Supply explains most of it. The Argyle mine in Western Australia supplied about 90 per cent of the world’s pink diamonds. Rio Tinto closed it in 2020, as ThePrint reported. Other mines turn up an occasional pink, but none has matched Argyle’s output, according to Mining.com.
Canada sits close to this story without being a pink source. Rio Tinto ended production at Diavik in the Northwest Territories on March 26, 2026. The mine had run 23 years and yielded more than 150 million carats, as IDEX Online reported. Diavik was Rio’s last diamond mine, so the company has now left diamonds after half a century, per MiningMX. The mine produced mainly white diamonds with a smaller number of rare yellows. Canadian Jeweller covered another Canadian coloured stone story when the Royal Canadian Mint released its Ekati yellow diamond coins. Rio will keep polishing and selling Diavik’s final rough through 2026 and beyond.
What does the Bulgari Pink diamond ring mean for Canadian jewellers?
We found no published Canadian figures on pink diamond sales, so the nearest Canadian signal comes from wider retail data. Statistics Canada reported April 2026 sales of about $457 million at jewellery, luggage and leather goods retailers. That was up 5.9 per cent from a year earlier, as Retail Insider reported. Michael Hill also posted record Canadian revenue of C$174.2 million in fiscal 2026. Management named bridal, diamond fashion and coloured stones among its stronger areas. So coloured stones are selling in Canadian stores now, at prices far below a Geneva paddle.
A store cannot stock a 24-carat pink, but it can use what Geneva just showed. Rarity with a documented story carries a price. Here is a Monday-morning file for the shop:
- Pull every coloured stone from the showcases. Then write one line on each stone’s grade, origin and maker.
- Check the date on each coloured diamond’s insurance appraisal, because older documents may sit well below current values.
- Print the Bulgari Pink figures on one page for the sales floor. Then staff can explain grade, rarity and provenance when a client asks about pink.
Read more from the Look of the Week section of Canadian Jeweller.
Frequently asked questions about the Bulgari Pink
CHF 12,086,000 at Christie’s Geneva on November 10, 2026, against an estimate of 10 million to 15 million.
A 24.00-carat, emerald-cut, fancy intense pink diamond of type IIa, set by Bulgari in a ring.
A European noble family, which kept it for more than 70 years.
We divided the reported price by the stone’s weight. The figure is our own arithmetic, not a Christie’s number.
No published Canadian figures exist that we could find. Statistics Canada retail data is the closest signal.
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Author: Olivier Fel.
Olivier Felicio is the founder and publisher of Canadian Jeweller Magazine, Canada's jewellery business publication since 1879. He writes on retail strategy, market data, trade policy and the commercial side of the Canadian jewellery and watch trade, and hosts Time and Shine, Canada's jewellery buying event. Contact: olivier@canadianjeweller.com.
