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A pair of unrecorded spectacles from Mughal India, their lenses cut from a single diamond and a single emerald, will be offered at Sotheby’s in London on 27 October in the Arts of the Islamic World & India sale, carrying a combined estimate of more than £4 million.
The two pairs are being offered separately, each estimated at £1.5 million to £2.5 million. The diamond pair is named the Halo of Light and the emerald pair the Gate of Paradise. Both have remained in the same collection for almost half a century and come to auction for the first time.
Ahead of the sale, the spectacles will be shown publicly for the first time, on view in Hong Kong from 7 to 11 October and in London from 22 to 26 October.
The lenses trace to 17th century Mughal India. Commissioned by an unknown prince, an artist shaped a diamond weighing over two hundred carats and an emerald weighing at least three hundred carats into the two pairs. No comparable example of either is known to exist. In around 1890 the lenses were placed in new frames decorated with rose-cut diamonds.
The original patron remains unknown, though the objects stem from the reigns of the Great Mughal emperors Akbar (1556 to 1605), Jahangir (1605 to 1627), Shah Jahan (1627 to 1658) and Aurangzeb (1658 to 1707). The diamonds are flawless and thought to come from the Golconda mines of southern India. Cleaved as a pair from a single natural diamond, possibly the largest ever found, they now together weigh twenty-five carats. The teardrop-shaped emeralds derive from a single natural Colombian emerald and now weigh twenty-seven carats.
Beyond their function, the lenses were regarded as aids to spiritual enlightenment, with diamonds thought to illuminate and emeralds believed to heal and to ward off evil. According to Edward Gibbs, Chairman of Sotheby’s Middle East & India, the pieces are “undoubtedly a marvel for gemologists and historians alike.”
(Press Release)
