This Week in Jewellery: The Romanov Sapphire, a Royal Jewellery Exhibition and a Duchess’s Opals
November is just getting underway, and already the jewellery world is giving us plenty to talk about. Geneva’s auction houses are gearing up for a busy few days, with some serious competition for collectors’ attention, while New York has a few surprises of its own. Throw in a little royal history, and we have quite a mix of news this week. Here are the five stories that caught my attention.
For more news as it happens, head to the Katerina Perez Club, where you’ll find the latest jewellery launches, exhibitions, appointments and industry news, alongside original stories from our editors, each bringing their own perspective and expertise. Updated daily, it’s your one-stop destination for everything happening in the world of jewellery.
Royal Jewellery: 500 Years at The King’s Gallery
More than 300 jewels spanning five centuries of British royal history will go on display at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, next summer. Royal Jewellery: From Coronations to Keepsakes will be the first exhibition of its kind, bringing together pieces from the Royal Collection, around two-thirds of which have never been seen by the public. Separate from the Crown Jewels, which will remain at the Tower of London, the exhibition will explore the jewels worn, treasured and passed down through generations of the royal family.
Among the highlights is George IV’s Diamond Diadem, commissioned for the king’s coronation in 1821. Its silver-and-gold frame is set with more than 1,300 diamonds, including a 4-carat light yellow diamond at the centre of the front cross, with roses, shamrocks and thistles representing England, Ireland and Scotland. Remarkably, the diamonds were originally hired for the coronation, as was customary at the time. Queen Victoria later appeared wearing the diadem in portraits and on early postage stamps, including the Penny Black, while Queen Elizabeth II wore it on her journey to Westminster Abbey for her coronation in 1953.
One of the most famous and treasured pieces of royal jewellery will also be on display: the sapphire and diamond brooch given to Queen Victoria by Prince Albert on the eve of their wedding. It will be joined by more intimate keepsakes, including a bracelet set with pebbles collected on their first journey alone together and a thistle brooch containing the first milk tooth of their eldest daughter.
Sotheby’s Geneva: The Romanov Sapphire
From the Russian Crown Jewels to the collection of an American opera singer, the 197.80-carat Romanov Sapphire has had quite a history. The unheated Ceylon sapphire is the star lot in Sotheby’s Royal & Noble Jewels sale in Geneva on 11 November, with an estimate of CHF 850,000 to 1.7 million.
Once paired with another enormous sapphire in a Fabergé setting, the stone was recorded in the post-Revolution inventory of the Russian Crown Jewels. Following the dispersal of the imperial treasures, it was acquired by opera singer and collector Ganna Walska in 1927. The sapphire passed through several settings before Cartier created its present home in 2015 – a high jewellery bracelet that places the magnificent cornflower-blue stone within a geometric lattice of diamonds. The bracelet also features an interchangeable engraved rock-crystal centre.
Patcharavipa x Adler: Forbidden Paradise
Thai jewellery designer Patcharavipa Bodiratnangkura has built a reputation for tactile 18-carat Siam Gold, hand-worked in Bangkok and often paired with unusual materials such as Moroccan thuya and Thai black wood. The Forbidden Paradise collection marks her first time working with titanium, made possible through a collaboration with Genevan jeweller Adler, whose expertise with the metal has opened up an entirely new palette of colours.
The colour is the first thing that draws you in. Titanium graduates from pistachio green through turquoise to blue, or from soft pink to lilac, in delicate shades reminiscent of sorbet. Slim, tapered earrings are punctuated by rows of diamonds, while rings coil around the finger in smooth, sculptural curves. Patcharavipa took inspiration from South African bird-of-paradise flowers, whose pointed petals and exotic colours find their way into the jewels. There’s something very fresh about these designs, with their dreamy pastel colours and fluid, futuristic shapes.
Geneva’s Big Jewellery Week
Three auction houses, three consecutive days and some extraordinary jewels going under the hammer. Geneva is gearing up for a very busy November, with Phillips, Christie’s and Sotheby’s all bringing major gemstones and historic jewels to the auction room.
Phillips gets things started on 9 November with The Geneva Jewels Auction: VII, led by a 1.35-carat Fancy Vivid Blue diamond and a 16.40-carat unheated Kashmir sapphire. Both are highly prized by collectors, with the sapphire originating from Kashmir’s legendary mines, whose richest deposits were largely exhausted by the 1880s.
At Christie’s on 10 November, all eyes will be on the Bvlgari Pink, a 24-carat Fancy Intense Pink Type IIa diamond that has remained in the same European noble family for more than 70 years. The emerald-cut has never appeared at auction. According to the family, the rough diamond was acquired in India in the 1950s and entrusted to Bvlgari, which created the ring they have kept ever since. It is expected to fetch CHF 10-15 million.
Sotheby’s closes the week on 11 November with a particularly strong line-up of historic jewels. Alongside the Romanov Sapphire is a late-1930s Cartier black opal jewel, estimated at CHF 780,000-1.1 million, made for Mary Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, who wore it as a necklace at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. A Harry Winston sapphire ring and a Mellerio diamond tiara complete the highlights.
Salon Art + Design: DYNE Makes Its Watchmaking Debut
Salon Art + Design returns to New York’s Park Avenue Armory from 4 to 8 November for its 15th edition, bringing together nearly 50 galleries and designers. Alongside contemporary and vintage jewellery, visitors will find furniture, ceramics, glass, lighting, sculpture and twentieth-century art. It’s a chance to see jewellery in the company of everything from Art Deco furniture to contemporary sculpture, with Mellerio, DYNE, Fernando Jorge, VRAM and Studio Renn among the exhibitors in 2026.
This year, DYNE founder Sarah Ysabel Narici makes her watchmaking debut with a timepiece combining a vintage Jaeger-LeCoultre movement and hand-cut cabochon diamonds, bringing the sculptural character of her jewellery to the wrist. Mellerio revisits its wonderfully unconventional nail jewels, based on a design patented by the Maison in 1951, while VRAM unveils new Moment V pieces alongside its collaboration with ceramicist Peter Lane.
Until Next Week
That’s my edit for this week. With a 24-carat pink diamond, a Romanov sapphire and centuries of royal jewellery to look forward to, November is off to quite a start. See you next week!
WORDS
Bianca Blanari approaches jewellery as architecture in miniature, where form, structure, balance and elevation are distilled into objects of intimate scale. Bianca joined Katerina Perez as Club Editor and contributing writer in March.
RelatedArticles
Discover the brand: the story from various angles.
