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# From 1 to 7 October the royal jewellers Wartski, at 60 St James's in London, will be showing a 2,000-year-old sky-blue ring of solid sapphire, which could go for over £500,000
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/c-1-po-7-okt-v-korolevskom-iuvelirnom-dome-wartski-na-sent-dzheims-60-v-londone-budet-vystavliatsia-2000-letnee-nebesno-goluboe-koltso-iz-tselnogo-sapfira-kotoroe-mozhet-uiti-za-500-000/
- Published: 2019-10-01T11:00:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:43:32.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Coming Up, Aristocracy, Archaeology, Art, London

From 1 to 7 October the royal jewellers Wartski, at 60 St James's in London, will be showing a 2,000-year-old sky-blue ring of solid sapphire, which could go for over £500,000\. One of the most famous intaglios in the world is believed to have belonged to Caligula, and it bears the likeness of the emperor's last wife, Milonia Caesonia, so beautiful that he paraded her naked before his friends. *No comment on that particular detail; do not forget that we are speaking of one of the most thoroughly depraved men in world history.*

Yes, it may sound dubious that, after nearly two thousand years, someone is selling Caligula's ring. But the jewel's provenance goes back to the 1600s, when it passed into the collection of the Earl of Arundel, and thence into the rich assembly of rare stones of the Dukes of Marlborough. In 1875 the sapphire, as part of the Marlborough collection of 800 unique stones, was acquired by a certain David Bromilow for £35,000\. Twenty years later Caligula's intaglio left Christie's, after which it resurfaced only in 1971, when its selling price was a mere £750.

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