Kashmir sapphire and diamond cluster ring, Austrian, circa 1930.

This is in excellent condition.

Kashmir sapphires are most famous for their colour which is unlike any other sapphire. It is described as an intense cornflower or cobalt blue with a fine velvety, milky softness. In 1881 a landslide exposed a remote snow-covered area in the Zanskar mountain range of the north-western Himalayas, Kashmir. The physical mining of these sapphires was incredibly difficult due to the harsh climate combined with the mountainous landscape. Within just six years, the old Kashmir sapphire mine was exhausted. Incredibly, all of the fine Kashmir sapphires in existence were mined between 1881 and 1887. Even today, these stones remain the exemplar by which other sapphires are compared. To own a fine natural unenhanced Kashmir sapphire is to have a truly astonishing gemstone of immense rarity.