Rare blue diamond goes on display in Abu Dhabi ahead of May auction

A rare blue diamond went on show at an exhibition centre in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, ahead of a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva next month.

The 10-carat Mediterranean Blue is the expected to fetch as much as $20 million dollars at the sale.

It is the centrepiece of a set of diamonds, valued at $100 million dollars, currently on pre-auction display.

“In total, we have over 700 carats of diamonds and only eight stones. Some of the rarest diamonds in the world,” said Quiq Bruning, Sotheby’s head of jewels for North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Bruning says Abu Dhabi was chosen for the exhibition because of the high level of interest in diamonds there.

“We feel very strongly that this is the kind of place where you have both traders and collectors of diamonds of this importance and of this rarity," he said.

The Mediterranean Blue was crafted from an almost 31.94-carat rough diamond discovered at the Cullinan mine in South Africa in 2023.

The creation of the cut-and-polished gem was the result of a year of study followed by a planning and cutting process that took six months

The Cullinan mine has yielded many of the world’s most famous diamonds, including the 530.2-carat Great Star of Africa which is now part of the British Crown Jewels.

Mediterranean Blue, considered one of the most important blue diamonds ever found, goes to auction on 13 May.