In absolutely fascinating news out of Qatar, the owner of the Henry Graves Jr. Patek Philippe Supercomplication, expected to sell for in excess of $15,000,000 tomorrow in Geneva, has died unexpectedly.

Its owner since 1999 when purchased at Sotheby's for $11,000,000, Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani of Qatar passed away at his home yesterday, Sunday November 9th. Al-Thani was only 48 years old, and the official cause of death has not been released.

Al-Thani was a world-class collector of art, cars, watches, natural history, and well, just about everything. That is until he ran into financial difficulties and several of his pieces were put on the auction block.

Will Al-Thani's death have any impact at all on the sale of the Graves Supercomplication tomorrow? Probably not. Nevertheless, this is an absolutely fascinating turn of events just 24 hours before the sale of the most valuable timepiece on earth.

Story via The Arts Newspaper.

As a reminder, you can read more about the Graves Supercomplication in our in-depth post here, watch a video on it here as told by the woman who first sold it, and read the full auction description here.