The following Q&A appeared in Art+Auction’s August issue, which profiles the world’s top auction houses of 2016. ARTINFO will be publishing the articles from this issue over the next few days. Click here to see related stories from the issue. To find all our coverage of the 250 Best Auction Houses Worldwide, as well as ARTINFO’s top picks for the best in visual arts, architecture and design, performing arts, lifestyle, and culture and travel, visit our Top Lists page at blouinartinfo.com/toplists.Sotheby’sHeadquarters: New YorkDavid BennettChairman, SwitzerlandWorldwide Chairman, Jewelry DivisionDuring his 40-plus years at Sotheby’s, Bennett has been instrumental in several record-breaking auctions. His tenure has seen the highest price paid per carat for any gemstone or jewel, achieved when the Blue Moon of Josephine, a 12.03-carat fancy vivid blue diamond, sold for $48.6 million in November 2015. The Graff Pink, a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond, fetched $46.2 million in November 2010, a record at the time. Art+Auction talked with the Geneva-based Bennett about his sterling record.Your $175 million sale on May 17 in Geneva surpassed all previous records. Given jewelry’s recent success, what are house expectations for the category in the future?It was a wonderful moment to break our own record, which had been set in the same Geneva salesroom a year earlier. To achieve a total of $175 million for our jewelry sale alone, in a single day, was astonishing. Our spring results in Geneva offered proof, if it was needed, that the demand is as strong as it’s ever been for the right material. We hope to build on this tremendous success and continue to source the finest gemstones and jewels to meet the exacting standards of today’s—and tomorrow’s—collectors.How do the auctions in Geneva compare with jewelry auctions in other cities? In what ways does your strategy there differ from sales held elsewhere?Since the 1990s, Geneva has consolidated its reputation as the world’s greatest center for jewelry auctions. Of course, we also hold very important jewelry sales in New York, Hong Kong, and London, and each of these selling centers has different characteristics. For example, last year we sold a spectacular white diamond weighing 100.2 carats in New York. [It realized $22.1 million.] Somehow, its emerald cut felt like the right fit for New York. There can be a host of strategic reasons for the way we curate our sales, and one factor that stands out for Geneva is its geographic location, which offers convenience for our clients, who come from all over the world.Has the collector base for the jewelry category changed in recent years?What’s really striking is that this category is truly global. Each year we see more countries represented in our auctions—more than 70 last year just for our Geneva sales. In 2015 we noted that there was very strong participation from emerging markets. Almost one-third of the bidders in Geneva, for example, were from Russia, Asia, and the Middle East. And this has continued into 2016: for our spring sale in Geneva, fully a quarter of participants were from Asia.Have you noticed new or renewed collector interest in specific stones lately? How are the shifts in collector tastes and modes of buying reflected in your sales?We are seeing a continued strong demand for colored diamonds, in particular pink and blue diamonds, which are the rarest in an already rare category. The Unique Pink diamond that sold in May and a stunning fancy vivid blue diamond weighing 7.32 carats that sold for more than $17 million—each went for more than $2 million per carat. We have been very excited to see more and more participants registering to bid online in our sales. In May, we recorded a 41 percent increase compared with the equivalent sale last year. We also set a new record for an online purchase in a live auction at Sotheby’s, when a pair of important, pear-shaped fancy blue and fancy orangey pink diamond earrings sold for $6 million.
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