gems, corundum, Quality.10, jewels, jewelry, sapphire, famous sapphires, Rockefeller sapphire

For an avid art collector, what is called “the eye” is a quintessential gift. A connoisseur’s eye derives, in fact, from a magic alchemy of taste, passion and knowledge in the relentless pursuit of beauty and rarity. For what refers to Roberto Polo, however, we will see that the concoction recipe, to the good eye, also adds unfathomable knowledge and scorching passion rather than calme, luxe et volupté. This is how Mr. Polo once described himself: “Collectors can be divided into two groups: those who satisfy their appetite by the endless accumulation of things and those who are most excited by the ‘hunt’, the search and research of things. The latter kind of collector satisfies his appetite and curiosity for the collectible once he has it and squeezes out of it, as from a ripe fruit, all the juice that it has to give, then he moves on to a different collectible, taking a new direction. I am one of those collectors who, like an eternal student, proposes himself a thesis, proceeds to do the necessary research, to complete the project and then to seek a new thesis.” That perhaps explains the prodigious span of four centuries in Mr. Polo’s art collection. Contains a description of the Rockefeller Sapphire and its history: “Polo did not only collect diamonds and jewelry: before long his passion for gems—a sort of an incurable curiosity?—went also to colored stones. The result was this majestic sapphire weighing 62.02 carats that the famous American industrialist John D. Rockefeller Jr. (son of John Sr., who lived 1874–1937 and founded Standard Oil Corp. in the 1860s in Cleveland, Ohio) purchased in India in 1934 from the last Nizam of Hyderabad (reigned 1911–1948). The stone originated in the famed mines of Mogok Valley of Burma (today Myanmar), providers since antiquity of top-quality corundum. It presents a marvelously brilliant and even royal blue color and appears to be without internal blemishes, an extremely rare occurrence in colored gemstones of this size. The original weight (most probably close to 100 cts.) was reduced to about 66 carats, shaped as a perfect step-cut rectangle and set in a brooch. In 1971 the Rockefeller family sold the sapphire to the legendary dealer of Armenian descent Raphael Esmerian (1903–1976) for $170,000, who quickly resold it to an Italian collector. Shortly thereafter, in 1980, the stone came up at auction and this time it was purchased by Ralph Esmerian, Raphael’s son, for $1.5 million. Ralph recut the stone to its present weight of 62.02 cts., set it in a strikingly simple and elegant platinum ring and sold it to Roberto Polo in 1986. In February 1988, as we know, in St. Moritz Sotheby’s sold the Rockefeller Sapphire again to Mr. Esmerian for $2.85 million, a world record price. The story of one of the most beautiful sapphires that ever existed does not end here: Ralph, in fact, resold it at Christie’s in New York for $3 million in 2001 to an anonymous Asian collector.” Parts of the information on the Rockefeller Sapphire are extracted from American Jewelry, by Penny Proddow and Deborah Healy, published by Rizzoli in 1987.