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A bracelet containing a sapphire once owned by Russia's doomed Romanov family has fetched more than 4.1 million Swiss francs (£3.7 million) at auction in Geneva.
Sotheby's said that the price vastly exceeded the expected price range of 850,000 to 1.7 million francs (£770,000 to £1.54 million) for the stone, which went under the hammer late on Wednesday.
The buyer was a private collector, who was not identified.
The cushion-shaped sapphire weighs 197.80 carats and is a Ceylon stone that likely came from the Mughal Empire in south Asia.
It made its way into Russia's imperial jewels in the 19th century and is one of the most important surviving gemstones from the Russian court.
The auction house billed it as a very rare stone.
Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, Czar Nicholas II's mother, wore the sapphire at the Winter Palace Ball of 1903 – which was "widely regarded as the last great spectacle of Imperial Russia and immortalized in some of the most iconic images of the Romanov court”, the auction house said.
The Romanovs were the last imperial dynasty to rule Russia, from 1613 until 1917, and Peter the Great and Catherine the Great are among their most famous members.
