Diamond earrings sell for £44.4 million

A pair of diamond earrings has sold at auction for a record-breaking £44.4 million. The enormous pear-shaped stones are almost perfectly matched - except that one is pink and the other is blue. Their rarity lies in the fact that not only are they extraordinary stones in their own right, but they also go beautifully together. But how do they compare to the most impressive diamonds ever sold?

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The earrings were actually sold separately, but to the same buyer, who will keep them as a pair. The pink one - known as Artemis - sold for £11.9 million -while the blue one - known as Apollo - sold for a jaw-dropping £32.3 million. The price difference is due to the fact that Apollo is vivid blue, which makes it incredibly rare.

It may have been a record-breaking price, but the stones actually came in well below their estimate of just under £54 million. It's a sign that buyers are still cautious after the drops we saw in the diamond market around the time of the financial crash.

Record-breaking diamond sales

And while these are impressive stones, and £44.4 million isn't to be sniffed at, these earrings are still some way off the truly incredible diamond sales we have seen at auction.

They failed to become the most expensive diamonds ever sold at auction. This title is held by the Pink Star diamond, which sold in April in Hong Kong for £57 million - seeing a new record for any gemstone ever sold at auction. It had, in fact, sold for even more than this in 2013, but the buyer defaulted on his payment, so the sale didn't go through.

In second place is the Oppenheimer Blue, a rectangular gem which sold in May last year for £40 million. It as the largest Fancy Vivid blue diamond ever to be offered for sale.

In third is the Blue Moon diamond, another Fancy Vivid blue, which sold in 2015 for £37 million.

In fourth place is the Graff Pink, which sold in 2010 for £35.5 million.

And in fifth is a highly unusual orange diamond - imaginatively called 'The Orange' - which sold in 2013 for £27 million.