Diamonds That Care expects to raise $420,000 for three dazzling unique brown-toned diamond jewelry pieces to be sold at Christie’s this July. All of the proceeds will benefit families of healthcare workers who lost their lives in the battle against COVID-19.
The online charity auction will be taking place between July 3-13. The jewelry pieces — a necklace, a red-gold ring, and a pair of earrings — are displayed at Christie’s website.
Diamonds That Care, the social responsibility initiative of ALROSA, the world’s largest diamond miner by volume, initiated this charity auction aimed at making diamonds help people in need. The company provided more than 500 colorless and fancy colored brown-toned polished diamonds, including a fancy brown-yellow 27-carat stone, for these exceptional three pieces of jewelry.
Chinese haute joaillerie artist Anna Hu was invited to create the set and wholeheartedly supported the project as of day one. “The pandemic has shown us terrible examples of suffering, as well as amazing examples of how people are helping each other,” said Ms. Hu. “I was inspired by these thoughts while working on the collection. I hope my jewelry pieces will be a contribution to the fight against the coronavirus. I also hope it will set a positive example for people and remind them of how important it is to help those who protected us. These pieces are set at affordable prices as I want anyone to be able to join the bidding process and to help raise funds to help the families that lost loved ones to the fight against COVID-19.”
Anna Hu’s jewelry to be auctioned includes:
• A 18k white-gold and 18k red-gold heart-shaped necklace with 305 fancy color and colorless diamonds of a total weight of 77 ct. It is centered with a 27.02 carat pear-shaped fancy brown-yellow diamond.
• A 18k red-gold ring with 37 fancy color diamonds and colorless diamonds weighing 2.2 ct in total, centered with a 1.59 carat pear-shaped faint-brown diamond.
• A pair of 18k white-gold and 18k red-gold earrings with 224 fancy color and colorless diamonds (total weight of 9.3 ct), each earring centered with a 3-carat pear-shaped diamond.
“The overall idea of this jewelry set is to celebrate how people have been opening their hearts to one another. That’s why the most important element in these three pieces is the heart shape. The heart is the best symbol to show that you care, Ms. Hu continued. “Whether through the perfect heart-shaped necklace, the earrings formed in continuous heart links, or the ring with a double heart motif, the message I’d like to convey is that jewelry can also serve as a way of doing good. To highlight the rarest pinkish, peachy color of ALROSA’s 27.02 carat pear-shaped fancy brown-yellow diamond and its aligning brown diamonds, I used red gold for these three pieces, with the goal of bringing more warmth and love to the world.”
To further encourage bidders’ interest in the auction, Ms. Hu will donate the original sketches outlining her inspiration behind these three pieces.
As the Diamonds That Care initiative does not hold the status of a charity foundation, the proceeds from the auction will be transferred to “Diamonds Do Good,” a global nonprofit organization which, in turn, will allocate the funds to organizations supporting healthcare workers in the U.S. and around the world.
“The world is beginning to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, but nothing will fully restore the health of those doctors and nurses who have been fighting for people for the past several months, and especially those who gave their lives to this fight. Diamonds have always been an expression of the most sincere emotions. We want them to express our deep respect for medical professionals and the heroic deeds they have accomplished, and to help them and their families.” commented Sergey Ivanov, CEO of ALROSA.
