Dad Buys 7-Year-Old Kid $77 Million Worth of Diamonds

A Chinese billionaire thought that $77 million dollars worth of rare diamonds would be the perfect gift for his 7-year-old daughter. Who is this dad? And, can he be duplicated? Seriously though, we would have been just as happy with a Happy Meal... as a seven-year-old that is...

Joseph Lau, who is either the sweetest or craziest dad in the world, purchased the two massive rocks for his daughter at a Sotheby's auction. The 12-carat blue colored diamond, which he later named the "Blue Moon of Josephine after her, went for a record-setting price of $48.5 million, while the 16-carat pink colored stone—now called "Sweet Josephine"— was a steal at $28.5 million, reports the New York Post.

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This 12.03-carat “Blue Moon” diamond sold Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015 for a record-setting $48.5 million. | Source

The polished blue gem was cut from a 29.6-carat diamond discovered last year in South Africa's Cullinan mine, which also yielded the 530-carat Star of Africa blue diamond that is part of the British crown jewels, and the Smithsonian Institution's "Blue Heart" discovered in 1908.

Sotheby's says experts took five months for an "intense study" of the original Blue Moon diamond, and a master cutter took another three months to craft, cut and polish the stone. The auction house said in a video that the Cullinan mine was the "only reliable source in the world for blue diamonds," and only a tiny percentage of those found in it contain even a trace of blue. Source: abc7

First Look: Carl Kahler, 'My Wife’s Lovers' - “one of the finest cat pictures in the world”

Carl Kahler, My Wife’s Lovers (1891). | Image: Sotheby’s

The history of what has been referred to as “one of the finest cat pictures in the world” (Oakland Tribune, February 4, 1930, p. 50) dates back  to the early 1890s when it was commissioned by cat enthusiast, Kate Birdsall Johnson of San Francisco. In 1891 Mrs. Johnson, possibly America’s greatest cat enthusiast, commissioned artist Carl Kahler to paint a portrait of some of her 350 cats who all lived in great luxury in her California home. This monumental work – ‘My Wife’s Lovers’ – will be an important highlight of Sotheby’s 19th Century European Art sale on 3 November in New York.

The painting is six feet tall and eight-and-a-half feet wide, and weighs a whopping 227 pounds and while rumor has it Mrs. Johnson owned anywhere from 50 to 350 cats at any given time, the artist, who had never painted a cat before, was paid $5,000 for his work. The title, 'My Wife’s Lovers'  is attributed to Ms. Johnson's husband, who obviously had a dry sense of humor.

So how did the artist get all these cats to remain still at the same time?

Well, according to Polly Sartori, head of 19th Century European paintings for Sotheby's in New York, who told Canadian television and radio journalist, Caroline Off in an interview, Kahler sketched each cat individually. "No way did 42 cats sit still to have their portrait painted," she said with a laugh.

"He was invited to her cat ranch. Now, Mrs. Johnson actually was very wealthy. She was a millionaire and she had this giant mansion. Some newspapers report that she had 350 [cats]. So Carl Kahler meets Mrs. Johnson at the ranch, at the mansion, and she asks him if he would paint a portrait of her cats," explains Sartori. "So, for three years he spends time with the cats in the mansion doing sketches. And then in and around 1893, he does their portrait. He takes all of the sketches and he puts together this monumental-sized giant painting of 42 of her cats."

The artwork is estimated to sell for $200,000–300,000.

Source: news.artnet