Most expensive jade jewellery sold at auction

The most expensive piece of jade jewellery sold at auction is the Hutton-Mdivani jade necklace, which fetched HK$214 m ($27.44 m; £16.63 m), including buyer’s premium, at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, China, on 6 April 2014. It obliterated its auction estimate of HK$99 m ($12.8 m; £7.7 m).

The necklace comprises 27 vivid green Qing Dynasty jadeite beads that are graduated, ranging in diameter from 19.2 mm to 15.4 mm and augmented with a diamond and ruby clasp. The precise origin of the jade beads is unknown but it’s been posited they were carved in the 18th century and were likely owned by a member of the Chinese Imperial Court.

In more recent times – and from which it now takes its name – the necklace was owned by US socialite, philanthropist and heiress to the Woolworth family Barbara Hutton, who was gifted the piece by her father on her marriage to Prince Alexis Mdivani of Georgia in 1933. It was for this occasion that Cartier was commissioned to restring the beads and add an 18-karat gold and platinum clasp, mounted with diamonds and rubies.

This isn’t the first time that this necklace has set auction records. A sale price of HK$15.6 m ($2 m) in 1988 was then the highest price ever paid for a piece of jade jewellery. It then surpassed its own record again when sold in 1994 for HK$33 m ($4.2 m).