Christie's sold a 14.2 carat diamond dubbed 'The Perfect Pink' for an eye-popping 23 million US dollars on Monday, setting what the auction house described as a record for Asia.

An unidentified buyer stumped up the huge price tag for the rectangular pink diamond at a jewellery auction in Hong Kong which garnered a total of 78.9 million US dollars, Christie's said.

"Leading the sale was the extraordinary Perfect Pink, a rare 14.23 carat Fancy Intense Pink diamond," the auction house said, calling it "the most expensive jewel ever sold at auction in Asia".

"The Perfect Pink is a phenomenon in the world of gems," it said.

The diamond's pre-sale high estimate was about 19 million US dollars.

In 2009, a five-carat chickpea-sized vivid pink gem set a per-carat world record price for a diamond when it fetched 10.8 million dollars at an auction in Hong Kong.