The color pink is said to be rare in nature. The dawn, the sunset, flowers, the plumage of an exotic bird; these are the only places our ancestors would have regularly encountered it. Perhaps this is why we are so viscerally drawn to pink. It denotes something special, beautiful and fleeting. Over the centuries, artists and craftspeople inspired by this rare color have expanded the number of pink objects we see and desire. In eighteenth-century France, pink became popular in fashion and art, and it has remained so to varying degrees ever since, rendering even the most humble objects dear. Yet our love affair with pink shows no signs of waning, and in the world of gemology pink diamonds are as awe-inspiring as the transient dawn skies and spring flowers were to our ancestors. Pink diamonds embody this most prized of colors in an enduring, eternal form.

The Eternal Pink, however, is not the pink of Fragonard or Boucher. It is not soft; it is not subtle. It is an electrifying, otherworldly shade of fuchsia that impresses and astonishes even the most seasoned gemologists and gem lovers. It is a sensational stone that commands attention and makes all other Fancy Vivid diamonds seem pale by comparison.

Of the great storied diamonds of history, only a few have been pink, and these have always been highly treasured. The Agra, the Regent, the Williamson Pink and the Darya-i-Noor were among the most prized possessions of great rulers. The GIA’s monograph on the Eternal Pink diamond notes that its rarity is “difficult to overstate.” Of all the diamonds submitted to the GIA, less than 3% are classified as colored diamonds, and less than 5% of those are considered predominantly pink. Most of these diamonds fall within the Faint to Fancy color grades and are small in size. In 2018, the GIA selected a sample of 1,000 pink diamonds graded between 2008 and 2016 and found that 83% weighed less than one carat. With its remarkable Fancy Vivid Purplish-Pink color, Internally Flawless clarity and impressive 10.57 carat weight, the Eternal Pink is arguably the most important pink diamond ever to appear at auction. Pink diamonds have always been scarce, but the recent closure of the Argyle mine in Australia has made the future availability of newly-mined pink diamonds a matter of uncertainty. In its letter accompanying the diamond report for the Eternal Pink, the GIA states, “Purplish pink diamonds with this level of saturation or intensity have typically been confined to diamonds found in the now closed Argyle mine in Australia. The contrast is that the Argyle diamonds rarely weighed more than one carat.”

Diacore has crafted some of the world’s most stunning and important diamonds, including the Williamson Pink Star, the De Beers Blue and the CTF Pink Star. The Eternal Pink is the company’s most recent creation to come to auction. The diamond was discovered in 2020 at the Damtshaa mine in Botswana. The rough weighed 23.78 carats and was carefully cut in Diacore’s New York City facility over a period of six months. The resulting shape, an elegant mixed cushion-cut, optimizes the stone’s astonishing color and gives it a remarkable brilliance.

The exact cause of the color in pink diamonds is still not fully understood, further adding to their allure. There is no evidence that the coloration is due to a specific trace element such as nitrogen in yellow diamonds or boron in blue diamonds. Early research suggested that manganese might be responsible for the pink hue, but this was ruled out after further investigation. The best explanation available today is that the color is the result of stress at the atomic level. Diamonds form deep within the earth’s mantle, where intensely high pressures and temperatures compress carbon atoms into a strong crystal lattice structure. Powerful volcanic eruptions displace these diamonds and bring them up into the earth’s crust where they may remain for millions of years before erosion washes them into waterways or they are excavated by miners.

The violent and chaotic nature of a diamond’s birth often leads to other minerals or inclusions becoming trapped within the crystal or causes it to crumble into smaller fragments. It is therefore unfathomably rare to find a specimen larger than 10 carats that is free from inclusions and blemishes. This is especially true for pink diamonds due to their inherent structural irregularities. The Eternal Pink’s Internally Flawless clarity grade makes it all the more remarkable. The stone is further distinguished by its Type IIa classification, indicating that it has no detectable levels of nitrogen in its makeup. Type IIa stones are often exceptionally optically clear, a quality associated with diamonds from the legendary mines of Golconda. Among Type IIa diamonds, only very few are as saturated in color as the Eternal Pink. In a GIA study conducted in 2022, it was determined that only 2% of pink Type IIa diamonds were graded as Fancy Vivid Pink.

The Eternal Pink’s vibrancy strains credulity. That something so vivid, so perfect was created by nature is nothing short of miraculous.