Lot 196. A 17.43 carats Kashmir sapphire and diamond ring. Estimate £ 300,000 - 400,000 (€ 350,000 - 460,000). © Bonhams 2001-2019

Accompanied by a report from SSEF. For further details please contact the Jewellery Department. 

Accompanied by a report from AGL stating that the sapphire is of Kashmir origin, with no evidence of heat or clarity enhancement. Report number 1099717, dated 19 March 2019. 

Provenance: Property of a European Noble Family.

Note: Sapphires hailing from Kashmir display a vivid velvety blue hue that is unique to the region. They are among the most highly-prized gems due to their rarity and their scarcity; while there are still superfine sapphires to be found in Burma and Sri Lanka, no mining activity has taken place in Kashmir for many decades and the mine that yielded the finest specimens was largely exhausted by 1887, after only six years of production. 

Kashmir sapphires were first discovered in the late 1870s/early1880s high up in the snow-clad Great Himalayas of north-western India where a landslide revealed hitherto unknown deposits in a rock valley 4500m above sea level. By 1882 the Maharaja of Kashmir had taken control of the mine that could only be worked from July-September each year due to the high altitude and near perpetual heavy snowfall. Because of its remote location mining techniques were always primitive. This first mine, known as the Old Mine, was a series of shallow pits sunk into the rock, which issued huge and abundant specimens. By 1887 the Old Mine was nearly exhausted and a New Mine, on the valley floor 250m below, gave up some fine sapphires but they were generally of lesser quality, size and quantity. The area was worked sporadically until the late 1920s/early 1930s but the glory years of the 1880s were never repeated. 

Today, Kashmir sapphires set the standard against which all other sapphires are measured and are avidly sought by collectors who are prepared to pay princely sums for top-quality specimens from this extraordinary period in the history of gemmology.