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Jewellery

The largest gem-quality rough diamond discovered in more than a century

May 09 2016

Weighing an astonishing 1,109 carats, the Lesedi La Rona is the largest gem-quality rough diamond to be discovered in more than a century. Dubbed “the find of a lifetime”, it is expected to fetch more than $70 million at a standalone sale at Sotheby’s London on 29 June.   Weighing 1,109 carats, the Lesedi La Rona rough diamond will be on sale at Sotheby's London on 29 June.Experts believe that once it has been cut and polished, this gigantic gemstone could knock the 530.20ct Great Star of Africa off the top spot as the world’s largest top-quality polished diamond. Despite constant diamond mining in many parts of the world, no other rough gemstone approaching its size has been discovered since the 3,016.75ct Cullinan Diamond was unearthed in 1905. This yielded the pear-shaped Great Star of Africa as well as another eight diamonds, all of which form part of the Crown Jewels housed in...

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Art & Sculptures

Damien Hirst Preserved In Amber Comes Back to Gagosian

Apr 26 2016

Robin Pogrebin has the news that Damien Hirst and Gagosian Gallery are working together again after a four year hiatus.  According to Pogrebin’s item, Gagosian feels there’s plenty of demand but he hints at the issue bedeviling Hirst’s market: “He’s a great artist, and it’s exciting to reboot the relationship,” Mr. Gagosian said. “It feels very fresh to me. I know a lot of collectors remain very, very interested in Damien and are extremely curious to see what he’s doing.” Most market commenters blame the pullback in Hirst’s prices on the 2008 sale Hirst held at Sotheby’s supposedly flooding the market with work. But that sale also marked the end of Hirst’s progression as an artist. With the exception of the ill-received paintings shown at the Wallace Collection in London, Hirst’s work seems more historical than ever. Here’s how Gagosian’s gallery describes the upcoming Frieze booth devoted to Hirst: “It will be a classical...

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Art & Sculptures

London Contemporary Art Market Performance

Mar 19 2016

If you want a solid illustration of the leveling off in the Contemporary art market, look no further than these charts prepared by Athena Art Finance‘s data guru, Lisa Prosser. By a variety of measures, we can see that seller expectations have gotten ahead of the market and buyers are chasing after works at lower price levels. The first chart, above, shows the aggregate of Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips’s Contemporary sales in a single chart. In both day and evening sales, the proportion of lots that exceeded estimates, shrunk from 2015 to 2016. Works that sold within estimates remained flat during the day sales but expanded dramatically for the evening sales. And the number of works that were bought in, or failed to find buyers, increased across both sales but to a greater proportion during the day than the evening.   Estimates are an interesting measure. But onlookers need to keep front of...

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Experiences

An Inside Look At London’s Most Expensive Luxury Hotels

Feb 16 2016

An Inside Look At London’s Most Expensive Luxury Hotels with One of the most notorious hotels for this is The Dorchester, where £770 for a 50g portion and £570 bottle of NV Krug Rosé are popular menu items. In The Dorchester’s infamous Promenade, Middle Eastern millionaires meet to talk freely in privacy. The height of the sofas and faux-marble pillars make it difficult for outsiders to gage who is talking to who. And that is precisely what they are used for nowadays, a place to do business in private. Only a few decades London’s grandiose hotels saw a crash. Without the masses noticing, these hotels have found success in an entirely new way. As an example a London Real Estate Agent I know told me, “I do business with a Saudi client, and he comes over with an entourage of 70 people. He has homes in London, but he does business...

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Jewellery

Tessa Packard Professional Jeweller Top 100 founder

Feb 15 2016

Fried eggs, gummy bears and waffles are just some of the shapes immortalised in Tessa Packard’s brilliantly fun fine jewellery collection, Fat Free — the follow-up to her equally enthralling No Smoke Without Flowers range. It’s been an incredible year for the designer, who has seen business boom alongside a fresh dose of collaborations, partnerships and events. Notably, Tessa was asked to guest design a collection for emerging Dutch diamond label House of Eléonore earlier this year, alongside being chosen as one of just two fine jewellers to be featured and promoted by international shopping service, Source Lifestyle. Tessa comments: “I’ve always been rather keen on the idea of global domination, so it has been incredibly exciting to see the brand grow and go from strength-to-strength, both in the UK and internationally.” When it comes to pinpointing the reasons for her success, Tessa believes it is her “perseverance and personal relationships that...

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