At over 18 carats, the vividly coloured gem is the largest pear-shaped pink diamond of its quality ever to be offered for sale at auction, Christie’s auction house said.

The diamond, which goes under the hammer for the first time on Nov 8, has been estimated at between US$25 million and US$35 million.

The sparkling pink tear-drop-formed stone has been mounted on a ring flanked by a large white diamond on either side, and weighs exactly 18.18 carats.

Christie’s highlighted that this was considered a lucky number in Asia, where it signifies “definite prosperity”, saying it expected the diamond to “garner interest from collectors across the globe”.

“Weighing in at an auspicious 18.18 carats… the weight in fact brings luck to the new owner,” Angela Berden, Christie’s senior jewellery specialist, told AFP.

“It’s a beautiful stone, it’s extremely rare to find a pink diamond, vivid pink diamond, of this size.”

“The colour saturation of this stone is so difficult to find in nature, and then when you find a crystal… with that weight, with that colour, and a very good clarity, that’s just really rare. I wouldn’t know where to find another one.”

While the Fortune Pink is the largest vivid pink pear-shaped diamond to go to auction, larger cushion-shaped pink diamonds have previously gone under the hammer.

In 2018, Christie’s sold the 18.96-carat Winston Pink Legacy, which raked in over US$50 million – the highest per-carat price ever paid for a stone of its kind.

The giant Raj Pink diamond, weighing a full 37.3 carats, meanwhile, failed to sell at a Sotheby’s auction a year earlier, where it had been estimated at up to US$30 million.