Our Favourite Jewellery Stories - Part 1
Here at Wild & Fine HQ, one of our favourite things about fine jewellery is its relationship with storytelling. The coveted nature of precious gemstones means that tales of romance and intrigue often surround the most expensive jewellery. From Elizabeth Taylor’s La Peregrina necklace and Princess Diana’s sapphire and diamond engagement ring, to the infamous Hope Diamond, the Star of Asia Sapphire and Wallis Simpson’s Cartier panther bracelet, epic tales of theft, betrayal, love, greed and tragedy abound.
Quite frankly, we can’t get enough of the grand love stories and legendary curses that surround the world’s most famous jewels, but we also really enjoy hearing the wonderful stories that our friends, family and customers have about their own precious jewellery. Seeking out tales of long lost engagement rings and wedding rings turning up in unlikely places and being reunited with their original owner is becoming something of a guilty pleasure.
Hearing that a colonial robbed the jewelled eye of a Hindu statue, leaving an angry cycloptic god spitting curses, makes you despair of humanity a bit, but nothing renews your faith in human nature or true romance like hearing about ordinary people finding someone’s lost diamond ring in a hedge and then moving heaven and earth to reunite it with its original owner. Jewellery has come to symbolise the best and the worst in humanity, and when that happens, a good yarn is never far away.
We’ve indulged our weakness for a good jewellery story and compiled a list of our favourites. We’ve split the list into three sections; famous real-life tales (Part 1 - this post), well-known literary works in which jewels hold a starring role (Part 2 - coming soon) and ordinary people with extraordinary jewellery stories (Part 3). We hope you enjoy reading about them as much as we did!
Famous Jewellery Stories
Elizabeth Taylor’s Multi-Million Pound Jewellery Collection
The love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton is one of the most famous silver screen romances in history. When they met in 1953, she was a beautiful and already successful young actress and he was a lothario from Wales with a reputation that preceded him. Both were married to other people when their first kiss took place, in 1962, on the set for Cleopatra. Their on-screen chemistry was so obvious that the film’s director, Joseph Mankiewicz, recalled cutting their kissing scene and being completely ignored by his two stars, prompting him to repeat “Would you two mind if I say cut?” And then “Does it interest you that it is time for lunch?”.
Famous not only for their tempestuous love of each other but also their fondness for a drink, their propensity for playing Scrabble (not a euphemism, they genuinely liked playing Scrabble) and their extravagant spending, Richard indulged his lover’s insatiable passion for jewels with a series of lavish gifts. He once joked that “I introduced Elizabeth to beer; she introduced me to Bulgari.” Burton bought Elizabeth some of the most story-laden jewels in the world, including the Krupp diamond and the “La Peregrina” pearl. “La Peregina” translates as “pilgrim” or “wanderer” and it has certainly travelled a lot in its lifetime. It was originally found by a slave in the Gulf of Panama in 1513. He handed it over to the Administrator of the Spanish Colony of Panama, who was so amazed by its beauty that he granted the slave his freedom and then took the pearl back to Spain, where it became part of the Spanish crown jewels. It is hailed as the most perfect pearl in the world and has been worn by Mary Tudor and by the Bonapartes of France. Richard Burton bought it as Sotheby’s in London in 1969 for $37,000, famously outbidding a member of the Spanish royal family.
Our favourite Elizabeth Taylor jewellery story is that, just after Burton gave her the “La Peregrina” at Caesars Palace on Valentine’s Day, Elizabeth realised that it had fallen off the chain around her neck. Whilst frantically searching for it, she noticed that one of her Pekingese puppies seemed to be chewing on a bone, which struck her as odd, given that they didn’t give the pups bones to gnaw. On closer inspection it transpired that the dog was chewing on $37,000 worth of 400 year-old pearl. Taylor later commissioned Cartier to make “the ultimate choker necklace” using La Peregrina. Inspired by a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots wearing the pearl, Taylor’s necklace was embellished with rubies, diamonds and more pearls, with the pear-shaped La Peregrina as the focal point. After Taylor’s death in 2011, the necklace was sold at Christies’ in New York for over $11 million.
The Curse of the Hope Diamond
Formed as crystallised carbon approximately 90 miles below the earth’s surface over a billion years ago, the majority of the Hope Diamond’s extensive life story is (and will always be) unknown to us. What we do know is that it rose to the Earth’s surface relatively slowly, through a volcanic vent on India’s Deccan plateau. It was then carried by rivers and streams to the alluvial field where it was eventually extracted from Kollur Mine in Guntur in the Seventeenth Century. Not much is known about when it was found or who its original owners were. The earliest historical records of the gemstone suggest French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier acquired it in 1666, possibly through theft. He brought the uncut stone to Paris, where it became known as the Tavernier Blue and ultimately became part of Louis XIV’s gem collection. The jewel remained the property of the French royal family until 1792, when it was stolen by thieves in a five-day looting spree of the royal storehouse during the early stages of the French Revolution.
The Tavernier Blue then disappeared from recorded history. It is likely that it was smuggled out to London and recut. Its next documented owner was Henry Philip Hope (which is when it became known as the Hope Diamond), but there are no records to suggest when he got it, or from whom.
The legend of the Hope Diamond curse was, if not fabricated then definitely exaggerated by Pierre Cartier, when he used the story to try and entice Edward Beale Mclean and his wife, mining heiress Evalyn Walsh Mclean, to buy the diamond in 1910. Cartier told them that the stone had once been set in the forehead of a statue of the Indian goddess, Sita, before Tavernier stole it in 1666. This roused the anger of the god and Tavernier was mauled to death by wild dogs on a trip to Russia, in the first of many misfortunes associated with the Hope Diamond. The Mcleans were not instantly grabbed by the prospect of bringing doom on their family by acquiring the jewel then and there, but they did ultimately purchase it in 1911, for $300,000.
Evalyn Mclean loved the Hope Diamond necklace that she commissioned from Cartier so much that she rarely took it off - her doctor even had to persuade her to remove it for a goitre operation. However, those who believe in the curse would be forgiven for thinking that Mclean suffered her fair share of misfortune as its custodian. Her son Vinson died in a car accident at the age of nine, her daughter committed suicide at 25 and her husband was declared insane and confined to a mental institution until his death in 1941.
The Hope Diamond can now be found in the Smithsonian National Gem and Mineral Collection in Washington, where it has been since 1958. Donated to the museum by New York Jeweller Harry Winston, it was sent to the institution via regular registered post. Many people felt that this would bring bad luck to the entire country. Maybe it could even be blamed for Trump’s presidency, who knows?
The Jewels Gifted to Wallis Simpson’s by Edward VIII
Most of us have heard the story of Edward VIII’s love affair with divorced American socialite, Wallis Simpson, his dramatic abdication of the throne in 1936, and his subsequent marriage to Wallis in 1937. What you may not know is that the Duchess of Windsor had an extensive jewellery collection, much of which was gifted to her by the Duke. This collection became known as the ‘Alternative Crown Jewels’ and each individual piece is linked with romantic and personal stories.
The jewellery gifts began while Wallis was still married to her previous husband and often included highly personal engravings. In March 1936, Edward gave Wallis a Van Cleef and Arpels ruby and diamond bracelet with “Hold Tight”, in his own handwriting, engraved on the clasp. At this time he was still king, she was still married and the world had yet to see just how far the pair would go for love. Almost every piece of jewellery that was gifted to Wallis by her third husband (Edward) includes a personal reference like the one on this bracelet. Whether it is a pet name, a love note or an in-joke, each item has been personalised to reflect their unique story. The Duke loved jewellery and many of the pieces were designed by the two of them, a glittering symbol of their collaboration, their rebellion and their “in this together” approach to life.
Anne Boleyn’s Lost B Necklace
Wandering through art galleries with Renaissance exhibitions or watching TV dramas about the Tudors will probably, at some point, result in a familiarity with Anne Boleyn’s B necklace - a string of pearls decorated with a gold B adorned with drop-shaped pearls. The funny thing is that all the depictions of Anne wearing the necklace were created after her death because, after her execution in 1536, Henry VIII is said to have destroyed all portraits of her painted during her lifetime. It is likely that he also melted down or sold off the many items of jewellery that he lavished on her when they were married.
The posthumous paintings of Anne wearing her B necklace have inspired contemporary filmmakers to depict her wearing it in nearly all films and TV adaptations about the Tudors. Little is known about what happened to the necklace after Anne’s death, but given that Henry VIII reset many of his first wife’s jewels for Anne, it is likely that he had the pearls reset for a subsequent queen. However, there is also speculation that the necklace may have been inherited by Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth I. There are even rumours that the pearls reverted to the crown and that some were used in Elizabeth II’s crown, but it’s not possible to prove this claim.
That Henry chose to shower Anne with jewellery as a token of his love and then felt the need to dispose of it all (and all the portraits of her wearing it) after her death, so that he could move on without being reminded of her at every turn, is evidence of the powerful storytelling power of jewellery. Whether it is a multi-million pound tiara or a simple wedding band, the jewellery we wear is more than an accessory or an afterthought, it is a gateway to memory and a way to honour the people who have worn it before. And that applies to ordinary people too, not just kings and queens.