Certain stones pass through the decades without a sound, sheltered in a vault or family jewel box. The Bvlgari Pink is one of them. For more than seventy years, this 24 carat pink diamond remained in the same hands, those of a noble European family. It now comes to auction for the fist time, in Geneva, at Christie's Autumn Luxury Week.
A Fancy Intense Pink diamond, a rare hue
In diamonds, color is a matter of nuance and geological chance, and pink ranks among the rarest expressions. It owes nothing to a chemical element that tints the stone: it is attributed to a distortion of the crystal structure, occurring deep within the Earth. The result cannot be reproduced and comes in shades ranging from pale petal to deep raspberry.
This one carries the grading Fancy Intense Pink. This grading, which gemologists look out for, denotes a pink that is assertive and frank, without the slightest tepidity. At 24 carats, the pink does not merely brush the stone. It inhabits it through and through, with the density of velvet.
An emerald cut to let the light speak
The diamond has been given an emerald cut, a rectangle with cropped corners whose facets step down like the stairs of a staircase. This sober design does not seek showy brilliance. It opens a window onto the interior of the crystal and lets the hue unfold in broad sheets. For a pink diamond of this size, restraint is essential: nothing distracts the eye from the material itself.
The stone also belongs to Type IIa, a category that accounts for less than 2% of gem-quality diamonds. Limpid, these diamonds have long fascinated connoisseurs. Christie’s, moreover, likens the finesse of its hue and the nobility of its proportions to those of the great historic stones, notably those from the legendary Golconda mines.
From India to the Via Condotti: the history of the Bulgari Pink
Its journey reads almost like a novel. According to family tradition, the rough diamond was acquired in India in the 1950s by the great-grandfather of the current owner. It was then entrusted to Bvlgari, which made it into the ring we see today
The Roman house was the natural choice. At the time, Rome was living its dolce vita. The Cinecittà studios welcomed major American productions, and the city earned the nickname “Hollywood on the Tiber.” The boutique on the Via Condotti became a meeting place where one might encounter Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer. It was in this atmosphere that the jeweler gave the pink diamond its final form.
An echo of the Condé diamond at Chantilly
Before this pink, history lovers may think of another stone, kept some forty kilometers from Paris, at the Château de Chantilly: the Condé diamond, a pale pink of nine carats that the museum preserves with care. Nothing connects the two jewels in weight or era, but they share the same temperament, that of a soft hue that prefers nuance to effect.
See The Bulgari Pink in Geneva: dates and venue
The Bulgari Pink will be offered on November 10, 2026, at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale, at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. The public can view it up close from November 5 to 10. It is an opportunity to stand a few centimeters from a pink diamond of this scale, and to see that photography, however carefully done, conveys only part of what the stone has to offer.
