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GV Bidders seated in audience at Sotheby's sale in Geneva.
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SV Earrings.
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SV Auctioneer taking bids as girl displays diamond earrings. (3 SHOTS)
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SV Diamond earrings
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SV Auctioneer takes last bid and announces sale at 11.3 million Swiss Francs and buyer leaves with girl wearing earring. (2 SHOTS)
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Background: In Geneva, a row has broken out over the ownership of the jewels which were auctioned in a multi-million dollar sale last week (13 November). Lawyers acting for the Iranian government say the jewels belonged to the Empress Farah, widow of the late Shah. Among them were diamond earrings which sold for a record auction price of six million, six hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars (GBP 2,769,000). A spokesman for Sotheby's, the auctioneers, has rejected the lawyers' claim. Sotheby's ???say it has proof that none of the jewels belonged to the Empress, or to the Iranian government. However, for the time being, the proceeds of the auction have been frozen by a court order.

SYNOPSIS: The auction took place in a crowded Geneva Hotel. The earrings each have two small and two large diamonds of the highest grade and purity. The large ones are about 60 carats apiece. They're thought to have been cut in the 1930s from a stone found in India. Sotheby's say they've been in the same family for some years. However, the auctioneers won't reveal the family's name for the time being.

The earrings' selling-price broke the previous auction record of six million four hundred thousand dollars (GBP 2,667,000), established last May, This was paid in New York for Turner's painting 'Juliet and her Nurse'.