Earrings

Two Russian diamond necklaces, with links to Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in Geneva next month with a $10m estimate.

IF pearls reached the peak of their popularity in antiquity, when the Roman general Vitellius is said to have financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother’s pearl earrings, then the market in 2012 does not rest too far behind.

“It was like the 1970s all over again,” said John Benjamin of Woolley and Wallis, describing the breadth of quality at his jewellery sale in Salisbury on April 24-25.