Marco Polo wrote of his visit in 1292, 'I want you to understand that the island of Ceylon is, for its size, the finest island in the world, and from its streams come rubies, sapphires, topazes, amethyst and garnet'

For a thousand years, Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka, has been an important source of gemstones, particularly the blue sapphire. Prized for its colour and size, this variety of corundum originates in the Southern part of the island. Here, stones eroded from the mountains are carried by streams to where they are hand picked from gravel deposits. This allows large crystals to remain intact. As a result, over the centuries Sri Lanka has produced many of the world's largest and most historic sapphires.

The sapphire shown above possesses a rare combination of attributes including size and quality making it the fourth largest gem-quality sapphire to be sold at auction to date.