The Blue Belle of Asia

Out of the City of Gems

The sapphire was found in 1926 at Pelmadula, in the Ratnapura district of Ceylon. Ratnapura's name means 'City of Gems.' Little is recorded about the stone as it came out of the ground. The 2014 sale catalog says it is hard to find its exact weight or shape at the time of discovery, and relies on a frequently repeated account that by 1928 it had been cut and polished to about 400 carats, was 'valued at 50,000' (the currency is not given), and had a 'highly prized peacock blue colour and excellent clarity.'

By then it belonged to Macan Markar, the Colombo firm of gem and jewelry dealers founded in 1860 by O. L. M. Macan Markar. The firm's stock drew some of the most discerning collectors of its day, and its clients included King Edward VII and King George V. No source consulted names the person who cut the stone; one recent profile says the Macan Markar firm oversaw a cushion cut that kept as much of the weight as possible, but the sale catalogs do not confirm it.

The car maker and the coronation

In 1937 the sapphire was sold to Lord Nuffield. Born William Richard Morris in Worcester, England, in 1877, he had started out at 16 repairing bicycles in a shed behind his parents' house in Oxford, moved on to motorcycles and cars, and founded Morris Motors, which made him the largest employer in Oxford; one reference work calls him 'the most famous industrialist of his age.' He was made a baronet in 1929 and Baron Nuffield in 1934, and on New Year's Day 1938 he became Viscount Nuffield.

He was also one of Britain's great philanthropists. In 1937, the same year he bought the sapphire, he founded and endowed Nuffield College, Oxford, and in 1943 he gave 10 million to create the Nuffield Foundation for medical research, hospitals and education. By his death in 1963 he had given away more than 32 million, according to the 2014 sale catalog, which does not state the currency of either figure (the 2025 catalog prints both in dollars). His reference biography also records that he financed Oswald Mosley's New Party in 1930 and held antisemitic views.

Why he bought the sapphire is unclear. It was reported that he meant to present it to Queen Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother, on her coronation day, May 12, 1937, when she and King George VI were crowned. The presentation never happened. Instead, in the catalog's words, the stone 'disappeared' into private hands, and its whereabouts were unknown for the next 35 years.

Lost, glimpsed, and sold twice

The one known sighting during those decades comes from the 1970s, when the Swiss gem dealer Theodore Horovitz was able to examine the sapphire. His notes and drawings, cited in the 2014 catalog, recorded its shape and weight.

The stone reappeared in 2014, mounted as the center of a diamond necklace and consigned to a sale in Geneva. Two Swiss laboratories examined it that September and found it to be of Ceylon origin with no indications of heating; one wrote that it was among the largest faceted sapphires it had ever seen. The pre-sale estimate was CHF 6.65 million to 9.5 million, reported as roughly $6.9 million to $9.9 million or $7.0 million to $10.0 million depending on the conversion used.

On November 11, 2014, it sold for CHF 16,965,000, nearly double the top of the estimate. The auctioneer's head of jewelry put the dollar figure at $17,295,796, or about $44,063 per carat, and called it a world record for any sapphire sold at auction. The buyer, a private collector seated in the room, was not named. The sapphire led a sale that brought in about $150.2 million, then the highest total for any sale of its kind, with more than 600 registered bidders from over 30 countries.

On June 17, 2025, the necklace returned to auction, this time in New York under the shorter name 'The Blue Belle,' with an estimate of $8 million to $12 million. It sold for $11,335,000. A new report from a third laboratory, issued that year, described its color as 'Classic Ceylon' and found no evidence of heat or clarity enhancement.

How to identify it

The Blue Belle is a cushion-shaped sapphire of 392.52 carats. In 2014 it was catalogued as hanging above a brilliant-cut diamond tassel pendant with oval-shaped diamond terminals, on a brilliant-cut diamond neck chain mounted in gold, 45.0 centimeters long. The 2025 catalog describes the same piece as a cushion modified mixed-cut sapphire with round and oval diamonds in 18k white gold, 44.4 centimeters long and weighing 234.5 grams in all. A 2025 preview describes the pendant as nine diamond tassels, each ending in a larger oval diamond.

Its laboratory record is unusually complete: a Swiss report no. 72359 dated September 2, 2014, a second Swiss report no. 14090018 dated September 11, 2014 (cited in the 2025 catalog as no. 1490018), both finding Ceylon origin and no heating, and a 2025 American laboratory report no. 1147856 calling it 'Classic Ceylon,' unheated, with no clarity enhancement.

Descriptions of its color differ. The 1928 account quoted in the catalog calls it peacock blue; a news report on the 2014 sale called it cornflower blue. For scale, the 2014 catalog notes that the largest sapphire of note in the Iranian Crown Jewels weighs 191.58 carats, and that the Kremlin's Diamond Treasury holds a 250-carat cornflower blue sapphire from the Russian regalia.

The numbers

Carat weight

392.52

Color

Blue; described as peacock blue (1928) and cornflower blue (2014); 'Classic Ceylon' (2025 report)

Clarity

Described as excellent (1928 account); no clarity enhancement (2025 report)

Treatment

Unheated (reports from 2014 and 2025)

Origin mine

Pelmadula, Ratnapura district, Ceylon (Sri Lanka); alluvial gem gravels

Cutter

Not documented

Necklace

44.4 to 45.0 cm; 234.5 g gross

Timeline

1. 1860

   O. L. M. Macan Markar founds his gem and jewelry firm in Colombo, Ceylon.

2. 1926

   The sapphire is found at Pelmadula, Ratnapura, Ceylon.

3. 1928

   Reported as cut and polished to about 400 carats, peacock blue, and 'valued at 50,000,' owned by Macan Markar.

4. 1937

   Sold to Lord Nuffield, founder of Morris Motors.

5. May 12, 1937

   Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The rumored presentation of the sapphire to the queen never takes place.

6. Aug 22, 1963

   Lord Nuffield dies at Nuffield, Oxfordshire.

7. Sep 2, 2014

   A Swiss laboratory reports Ceylon origin and no indications of heating.

8. Sep 11, 2014

   A second Swiss laboratory reports the same and calls it one of the largest faceted sapphires it has seen.

9. Nov 11, 2014

   Sold at auction in Geneva for CHF 16,965,000 ($17,295,796) to a private collector in the room: a world record for a sapphire.

10. 2025

    An American laboratory grades it 'Classic Ceylon' with no evidence of heat.

11. Jun 17, 2025

    Sold at auction in New York as 'The Blue Belle' for $11,335,000.

The world in 1937

• Apr 26, 1937

  In the Spanish Civil War, the town of Guernica is bombed.

• May 6, 1937

  The German airship Hindenburg is destroyed in the United States.

• May 12, 1937

  George VI and Elizabeth are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom.

• Jul 2, 1937

  Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear after taking off from New Guinea.

• Dec 21, 1937

  Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premieres.

• Nov 3, 2014

  One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, opens in New York the week before the record sale.

• Nov 12, 2014

  The day after the sale, the Philae probe lands on a comet.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, The Blue Belle of Asia is number 20 of 100 in the jewelry entries of the FLOAT 100. 44 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (18 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The sapphire's whereabouts were unknown for about 35 years after 1937; the only known sighting came when a Swiss gem dealer examined it in the 1970s.
• At 392.52 carats it is more than twice the weight of the largest notable sapphire in the Iranian Crown Jewels, which weighs 191.58 carats.
• Lord Nuffield started his business at 16, repairing bicycles in a shed behind his parents' house.
• Its 2014 price was nearly double the top of its estimate; its 2025 price was about two-thirds of its 2014 price.
• One of the labs that tested it in 2014 called it one of the largest faceted sapphires it had seen to date.
• Only three faceted sapphires over 350 carats are listed ahead of it: the Blue Giant of the Orient, the Queen of Romania's Sapphire and the Logan Sapphire.