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AUCTION

Actor Redford slams ‘immoral’ Paris auction

Hollywood actor and director Robert Redford on Thursday weighed into a row about plans to auction off 70 ceremonial masks originating from the Hopi tribe of Arizona, calling the proposed sale "sacrilege".

Actor Redford slams 'immoral' Paris auction
Photos: USembassyinLondon/Miguel Medina AFP

In a letter of support, Redford condemned the looming auction in Paris and warned of "grave moral consequences" if it went ahead.

The masks — described by French auction house Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou as kachina visages — are due to go under the hammer on Friday.

Describing himself "as a close friend of the… Hopi culture," Redford wrote that the masks "belong to the Hopi and the Hopi alone."

"To auction these would be, in my opinion, a sacrilege – a criminal gesture that contains grave moral repercussions.

"I would hope that these sacred items can be returned to the Hopi tribe where they belong. They are not for auction," he added.

Representatives of the Hopi tribe, who number around 18,000, are appalled by the prospect of a slice of their cultural heritage being touted to the highest bidder.

The Hopi say the items being auctioned are blessed with divine spirits, and insist that even the mere description of them as masks or artefacts is highly offensive, adamant that the upcoming auction is a form of sacrilege.

But while the sale of sacred Indian artefacts has been outlawed in the United States since 1990 – legislation which has allowed the tribe to recover items held by American museums in the past – the law does not extend to sales overseas.

The auction house, however, has said there are no grounds to halt the sale, stressing that the items being sold were acquired legally by a French collector during a 30-year residence in the United States.

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DIAMOND

Rare pink diamond to go under hammer in Geneva

An extremely rare pink diamond will be auctioned in Geneva on November 11 by Sotheby's, which says it is worth between $23 and $38 million.

Rare pink diamond to go under hammer in Geneva
A model poses with the “The Spirit of the Rose” diamond during a press preview on Friday. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
Named “The Spirit of the Rose” after a famous Russian ballet, the 14.83-carat diamond mined in Russia is the biggest ever to go under the hammer in its category — “fancy vivid purple-pink”.
 
The occurrence of pink diamonds in nature is extremely rare in any size,” Gary Schuler, head of Sotheby's jewellery division, said in a statement. “Only one per cent of all pink diamonds are larger than 10-carats.”
   
Speaking to AFP, Benoit Repellin, head of fine jewellery auctions at Sotheby's Geneva, said the oval-shaped diamond was “completely pure.”
 
 
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The rough diamond was unearthed by Russia's Alrosa — one of the world's leading diamond producers — in the Republic of Sakha in the northeast of the country in July 2017.
   
Repellin said it took a painstaking year for cutting masters to turn the diamond into its polished form.
   
Sotheby's said the world auction record for a diamond and any gemstone or jewel was the “CTF Pink Star”, a 59.60-carat oval pink diamond that sold for $71.2 million in Hong Kong in 2017.
   
According to Repellin, five out of the 10 most valuable diamonds ever sold at auction were pink.
   
The sale of this gem coincides with the closure of the world's largest pink diamond mine in Australia after it exhausted its reserves of the precious stones.
   
The Argyle mine, in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, churned out more than 90 percent of the world's pink diamonds.
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