Blacklock

It was a big day on Tuesday in the fine jewellery world as Prince William's engagement to Kate (Katherine) Middleton was anounced.

William's beautiful gesture of presenting his mother's engagement ring moved many and immediately brought back echoes of previous times. However our real interest lay in the engagement ring - where was the ring from and what was the quality of the sapphire? It is clearly a ring that needed to be understood.

The ring was a catalogue piece from Garrard the jeweller. It is a diamond and sapphire cluster ring which features an 18 carat Ceylon sapphire with 14 diamonds surrounding it. A stunning, statement piece of jewellery.

What is unusal about this ring is that it was a catalogue piece and one which was not specifically made for Diana - this is unusal for Royalty.

A bit about Ceylon Sapphires

Ceylon Sapphires are from Sri Lanka and have a unique electric blue colour which is deep and attractive. They are some of the oldest sapphires on the planet as their mining has been traced back to ancient times, however in order of the most valuable of sapphires they are third on the list behind Kashmir and Burmese sapphires.

The beauty of sapphires is often their different appearance from differing angles - they often show two tones of blue / violet from different angles - this affect is known as pleochrism. In this case the sapphire presented clearly seems to have strong deep blue pleochrism as from certain angles it appears dark blue - this is quite unusal for a Ceylon Sapphire as the pleochrism is often lighter blue.

So the sapphire that Prince William presented to Kate Middleton is exceptional in several ways, firstly its size is exceptional, secondly its colour is not what you would expect and thirdly its' provenance is iconic. This piece of jewellery is now moving into the stratosphere in terms of value and provenance - quite a story for a catalogue piece of jewellery!