(IDEX Online) - An ultra-rare 10.57-carat Eternal Pink came within a whisker of its $35m estimate at Sotheby's New York. It sold for $34.8m.
The auction house said the cushion mixed cut diamond - certified as fancy vivid purplish pink and internally flawless - carried the highest price per carat estimate ever placed on any diamond or gemstone ($3,311,258).
But the per carat record remains with the 11.15-carat Williamson Pink Star, at $5,178,124.
The highest price ever paid for any pink diamond is $71.2m, by China's biggest jeweler, Chow Tai Fook, at an auction held by Sotheby's Hong Kong, in April 2017.
The Eternal Pink was mined by De Beers at the Damtshaa mine, in Botswana, as a 23.78-carat rough stone and was cut by Diacore over a six-month period.
It headlined the Sotheby's Magnificent Jewels auction in New York on 8 June and sold for exactly the same price as the Estrela de Fura, which became the world's most expensive ruby.