The unveiling of the world’s largest internally flawless diamond by internationally known jeweller and watchmaker Mouawad headlined the show.
Called the ‘Incomparable Diamond’, the jewel was found by a little girl in a pile of kimberlite in Congo 33 years ago. It made a long journey through various hands and museums before it was shown here as the pendant in Mouawad’s latest masterpiece, the ‘Mouawad L’Incomparable diamond necklace’ featuring 91 diamonds totalling 635.40 carats in weight.
Graff, a London-based jeweller known for its rare diamonds and unique designs, is showcasing some of the most expensive items at this year’s show. One of them is a QR100m diamond necklace of over a hundred carats in total.
The necklace has diamonds totalling 70 carats on the chain and a 33-carat diamond as the pendant. There are also matching pear-shaped earrings with 40 carats of flawless diamonds of the best colour and clarity.
A pair of necklace and earrings made of Colombian emeralds worth QR75m is another attraction at the Graff pavilion. According to Clive Golanski of Graff, the jewellery set was rare in terms of the size, shape and colour of the emeralds.
The highlight at the Christie’s stand is a 1922 necklace set with 100k old mine emeralds from Colombia. Worth $7m, the necklace stands out for its rarity — it is impossible to create another such piece as the materials don’t exist anymore, said Julien-Vincent Brunie, international director, private sales.
Another highlight among a hundred pieces displayed at the Christie’s stand is a Boucheron diamond set comprising a necklace convertible into a tiara and matching brooches. Created in 1947 for the late king of Egypt, the tiara is priced at around $900,000.
Garrard, one of the oldest jewelers in the world, is showing for the first time in Qatar an emerald necklace, the most expensive in their collection at this year’s show. Worth over QR8m, the necklace features 76 carats of fine untreated Colombian emeralds.
A diamond and emerald set specially created for the exhibition, a tiara with some detachable parts convertible to earrings and pendant and a limited edition collection celebrating ten years of the company’s iconic ‘Wings’ collection are other amazing pieces in the Garrard stand.
Among luxury watches, Patek Phillipe has some of the most expensive at the show, with pieces whose prices range between QR5m and QR6m. They were sealed and not displayed at the stand for they had already got buyers, who are the only ones who can unseal the watch.
Sherif El Sakkaf, Public Relations, Middle East, Patek Philippe, said they had brought a wide variety of watches to the expo, but the most expensive ones were pre-ordered.
“The intricacy of the mechanism and the time it takes for the master watchmaker to make the piece is the reason why it costs more than a million dollars,” explained El Sakkaf.
A watch which took more than a year to make had over a thousand components and a lot of complex mechanisms, he said.
“In the year 2000, we launched a pocket clock called Caliber 2000 celebrating the millennium. To date it is the most complicated watch ever made; it has 32 complications in one timepiece, that’s why watch collectors who are passionate about complicated timepieces at one point or another come to Patek Philippe,” he added.
Other famous brands displaying luxury watches include Rolex and Breitling for Bentley. With a price tag of QR1.16m, Breitling’s diamond-studded timepiece is a limited edition watch, with only 10 pieces made.
