One of the largest and most perfect sapphires to come to auction over the past three decades will headline Phillips’ Jewels & Jadeite Sale in Hong Kong on May 23. Weighing 118.35 carats and scoring an astonishing 98 out of 100 points on Gübelin Gem Lab’s rating scale, the Sri Lanka-sourced stone is expected to sell in the range of $3.2 million to $4.5 million.
Gübelin Gem Lab awarded the cushion-shaped sapphire its coveted “Royal Blue” color grading, noting that the stone displays an even saturation rarely seen in a blue sapphire of this size.
The colored gem is horizontally set in a lavish diamond-and-platinum necklace designed by Bulgari in 2004. The luxury jeweler’s executive director, Lucia Silvestri, remembered the feeling that overtook her when she handled the sapphire for the first time more than 20 years ago.
“I was so impressed and touched that I still remember the emotion I felt,” she said, adding that Sri Lankan sapphires possess “the transparency and luminosity” of “gems that are infused with light and joy.”
Although it was designed in the 2000s, the necklace invokes the opulence of the 1950s, according to Phillips.
The auction house explained that the repeating circular links are typical of Bulgari’s “modulo” jewelry designs, where a single element is produced in series and then connected to each other.
Phillips compared the center stone favorably with some of the world’s most famous sapphires, such as the 486.52-carat Giant of the Orient, the 422.99-carat Logan Blue Sapphire and the 392.52-carat Blue Belle of Asia.
The auction house explained that Sri Lanka’s gem mining history dates back nearly 2,500 years, making it one of the first sources of fine sapphire — the luxury gem coveted by the ancient Greeks, Romans and Persians.
The auction’s top lot will be on exhibit in five cities — Hong Kong, New York, Singapore, Taipei, Geneva — before returning to Hong Kong for the sale on May 23.
An international team of archaeologists announced last week that they unearthed the UAE’s oldest pearling village on Al Sinniyah Island, about 40 miles northeast of Dubai. The site dates back 1,300 years.
Timothy Power, an archaeologist at the United Arab Emirates University, told the AP that the ancient settlement is the oldest known example of a Khaleeji pearling town, the type of settlement that sourced and traded rare and valuable natural pearls in the Persian Gulf for thousands of years. “Khaleeji” is the Arabic word for “Gulf.”
Among the items discovered at the site were pearls, pots, a diving weight and a many, many discarded oyster shells.
The diving weight is an apparatus worn by free divers to quickly descend to the seabed, where they would search for oysters while holding their breath. The diving weight recovered at the site is the oldest ever documented in the UAE.
A significant portion of the pottery found at the site was made in India, which proves the local residents were trading pearls for Indian goods.
The large mound of discarded shells is a testament to the number of oysters collected during the 200 years of production at the site.
“You only find one pearl in every 10,000 oyster shells. You have to find and discard thousands and thousands of oyster shells to find one,” Power told the AP. “The waste, the industrial waste of the pearling industry, was colossal. You’re dealing with millions, millions of oyster shells discarded.”
While pearling has been a fundamental component of this region’s heritage and livelihood for more than 7,000 years, unearthing settlements like the one on Al Sinniyah Island has been an elusive challenge for archaeologists. The recent find is unique because it hadn’t been resettled since pearling activity ended in the 8th century and was left virtually undisturbed.
The pearling village, which included one-room homes in close proximity to more lavish multi-level homes with courtyards, reflected the fact that poor divers and wealthy merchants were living side by side.
Spread across 12 hectares (about 30 acres), the structures were made from beach rocks, lime mortar and palms trunks that were brought over from the mainland. Powers told CNN that this was a year-round settlement, “a proper town.”
The pearling community, which included hundreds of homes and thousands of people, shared the island at the time with a Sinniyah Christian Monastery. The archaeologists are still trying to noodle out why the monastery was built on a the pearling island, but surmised that the pearl divers and merchants were likely Christians. The town predates the rise of Islam across the Arabian Peninsula.
Taking part in the excavation of the pearling village were the Umm al-Quwain’s Department of Tourism and Archaeology, UAE University, the Italian Archaeological Mission in the emirate and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University.
According to CNN, at the height of the Persian Gulf pearling industry in the 19th century, nearly two in three men living in Abu Dhabi were connected to that industry.
Credits: Photos top and middle courtesy of Umm al Quwain Tourism and Archaeology Department. Photo at bottom by Alexandermcnabb, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
An ultra-rare “Ides of March” gold coin that darkly commemorated the assassination of Roman dictator Julius Caesar in 44 BC — and broke an auction record in 2020 when it fetched $4.2 million — has been returned to Greece by New York authorities.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office confiscated the ill-gotten coin from an unnamed US billionaire, who bought it in good faith, but the coin should have never been offered at auction. Greece’s Antiquities Law states that ancient works, including coins, are the property of the state.
Greek officials reclaimed the coin last Tuesday during an official ceremony at the country’s consulate in New York City.
This previously unrecorded coin — one of only three known to exist — was reportedly closely held in a private European collection. But New York authorities claim that it has been looted from a field near where, more than 2,000 years ago, an army loyal to Caesar’s assassins camped during the struggle for control of Rome. Experts told The New York Times that the coin was likely found about a decade ago, but not reported to Greek authorities as required by law.
Back in 2020, numismatic expert Mark Salzberg, chairman of the Sarasota, FL-based Numismatic Guaranty Corporation, said he anticipated the coin’s strong performance at auction.
“I’m not surprised it set a world record as the most valuable ancient coin ever sold,” said Salzberg at the time. “It’s a masterpiece of artistry and rarity, still in mint condition after 2,000 years, and only the third known example made in gold. Many of us believed it would sell for millions, and it did.”
The front of the coin features a portrait of Marcus Junius Brutus, one of Caesar’s assassins, and the other side dramatically depicts two daggers and the marking “EID MAR.” The initials represent the Latin abbreviation for the Ides of March, which corresponds to March 15 on the calendar and is the date Caesar was assassinated.
Between the two daggers is a “pileus” — a cap of liberty traditionally given to Roman slaves when they were freed. The cap’s image was a symbolic statement that Rome was liberated after the assassination of the tyrant dictator.
“It was made in 42 BC, two years after the famous assassination, and is one of the most important and valuable coins of the ancient world,” explained Salzberg in 2020.
While nearly 100 Ides of March silver coins are known to still exist, this is only the third example known to be struck in gold. Of the other two, one is in the British Museum on loan from a private collector and the other is in the Deutsche Bundesbank collection.
The gold coin was one of 29 Hellenic antiquities returned to Greece during the ceremony. Some dated back to 5,000 BC and included figurines, vessels and jewelry. They had a combined estimated value of about $20 million.
Credits: Images courtesy of Numismatic Guaranty Corporation.
The Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (DANAT) is teaming up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to explore advanced methods to establish a natural pearl’s area of origin and method of growth.
MIT.nano, MIT’s open-access center for nanoscience and nanoengineering, will be the organizational home for the project, where MIT associate profession Admir Mašić and his team will utilize the facility’s state-of-the-art tools to study a pearl’s morphological, micro-structural, optical and chemical properties.
DANAT is a gemological laboratory specializing in the testing and study of natural pearls as a reflection of Bahrain’s pearling history and desire to protect and advance Bahrain’s pearling heritage, which dates back to the 5th millennium BC.
“Pearls are extremely complex and fascinating hierarchically ordered biological materials that are formed by a wide range of different species,” said MIT associate professor Admir Masic. “Working with DANAT provides us a unique opportunity to apply our lab’s multi-scale materials characterization tools to identify potentially species-specific pearl fingerprints…”
Petroleum production and refining currently accounts for 60% of Bahrain’s exports, but until the early 1930s, this island kingdom just off the Arabian Peninsula drew its wealth from the natural pearls that propagated the abundant oyster beds that hug the nation’s coast. Bahrainis would free dive to collect oysters from the sea floor.
On June 2, 1932, oil was discovered in Bahrain, and that new natural resource — combined with competition from Japan’s lower-priced cultured pearls — sent Bahrain’s natural pearl industry into a tailspin.
Now, more than 90 years later, Bahrain is looking to reinvigorate its natural pearl industry. Its pearl beds are said to be larger than Manhattan.
Natural pearls are exceedingly rare because they are created by mollusks randomly, without human intervention. When a grain of sand or similar irritant gets between the mollusk’s shell and its mantle tissue, the process begins. To protect itself, the mollusk instinctually secretes multiple layers of nacre, an iridescent material that eventually becomes a pearl.
It is estimated that a pearl will naturally form in only one in 10,000 oysters.
Cultured pearls, by contrast, are created with human intervention — when a bead is embedded inside the body of the mollusk to stimulate nacre secretion.
“Today the world knows natural pearls and cultured pearls. However, there are also pearls that fall in between these two categories,” said DANAT’s chief executive officer Noora Jamsheer. “DANAT has the responsibility, as the leading gemological laboratory for pearl testing, to take the initiative necessary to ensure that testing methods keep pace with advances in the science of pearl cultivation.”
Welcome to Music Friday when we celebrate chart-topping songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, Aussie sensation Sia teams up with Jamaican rapper Sean Paul to deliver the international mega-hit “Cheap Thrills.” Viewed more than 1.7 billion times on YouTube, the song features Paul’s reggae-spiced refrain, “You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold.”
The song follows Sia as she prepares for an exciting weekend with her partner at the dance club. She explains that she doesn’t need dollars bills to have fun tonight, because embracing the music and letting loose on the dance floor is worth so much more.
Sia and Paul alternate lines as they sing, “But I don’t need no money / (You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold) / As long as I can feel the beat.”
Penned by Sia and Greg Kurstin, “Cheap Thrills” was the second single released from Sia’s seventh studio album, This Is Acting (2016). The song has been described by critics as a “bouncy party anthem,” a “sunny jam” and “another superior slab of on-trend ear candy.” It has the distinction of being the most Shazamed song of 2016.
The “Cheap Thrills” lyrics video, which mimics the 1960s vibe of American Bandstand and features faceless dancers (Minn Vo and Stefanie Klausmann) wearing signature Sia wigs, is well on its way to 2 billion views.
A second video highlighting the then-13-year-old Dance Moms star Maddie Ziegler has accumulated 860 million views. Ziegler also appeared in Sia’s videos for “Chandelier,” “Elastic Heart” and “Big Girls Cry.”
“Cheap Thrills” ascended to #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and sold more than 11 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. Sia fans may remember that she wrote “Diamonds” for Rihanna in 2012. That song was also an international hit, with worldwide sales of more than 9 million.
In an interesting twist, Sia and Kurstin wrote “Cheap Thrills” for Rihanna, but the artist passed on it. As reported in Rolling Stone, Rihanna’s manager was seeking out another “Diamonds,” a song with soul and feeling.
“I realized just as soon as I was cutting it that it sounded a little bit too Brit-pop for her,” Sia told Rolling Stone. “We did actually send it to her, but they passed on it, and then I just couldn’t stop listening to it in the car.”
Sia decided to perform it herself, and the rest is hit-making history.
Please check out the “Cheap Thrills” video at the end of this post. The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…
“Cheap Thrills” Written by Greg Kurstin and Sia Furler. Performed by Sia, featuring Sean Paul.
Up with it girl Rock with it girl Show dem it girl (Bada bang bang) Bounce with it girl Dance with it girl Get with it girl (Bada bang bang)
Come on, come on, turn the radio on It’s Friday night and I won’t be long Gotta do my hair, I put my make up on It’s Friday night and I won’t be long
Til I hit the dance floor (Bada bang) Hit the dance floor (Bada bang) I got all I need (Sia) No I ain’t got cash No I ain’t got cash But I got you baby (Just you and me)
Baby I don’t need dollar bills to have fun tonight (I love cheap thrills) Baby I don’t need dollar bills to have fun tonight (I love cheap thrills) But I don’t need no money You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold As long as I can feel the beat Mek di beat jus tek control I don’t need no money You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold As long as I keep dancing Free up yourself, get outa control
Come on, come on, turn the radio on It’s Saturday and I won’t be long Gotta paint my nails, put my high heels on It’s Saturday and I won’t be long
Til I hit the dance floor (Bada bang) Hit the dance floor (Bada bang) I got all I need (Sia) No I ain’t got cash No I ain’t got cash But I got you baby (Just you and me)
Baby I don’t need dollar bills to have fun tonight (I love cheap thrills) Baby I don’t need dollar bills to have fun tonight (I love cheap thrills) But I don’t need no money You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold As long as I can feel the beat Mek di beat jus tek control I don’t need no money You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold As long as I keep dancing Free up yourself, get outa control
Me and you girl, you and me Drop it to di floor an mek mi see your energy because Mi nah play na hide an seek Wah fi see di ting you have weg mek me feel weak girl Cause anytime you wine and kotch it Di selector pull it up an pull it pon repeat girl I’m nah touch a dollar in my pocket Cause nuttin in this world ain’t more dan what you worth
But I don’t need no money You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold As long as I can feel the beat Mek di beat jus tek control I don’t need no money You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold As long as I keep dancing Free up yourself, get outa control Oh, oh
Baby I don’t need dollar bills to have fun tonight (I love cheap thrills) Baby I don’t need dollar bills to have fun tonight (I love cheap thrills) But I don’t need no money You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold As long as I can feel the beat Mek di beat jus tek control I don’t need no money You worth more dan diamonds, more dan gold As long as I keep dancing Free up yourself, get outa control
La, la, la, la, la, la (I love cheap thrills) La, la, la, la, la, la (I love cheap thrills) La, la, la, la, la, la (I love cheap thrills) La, la, la, la, la (I love cheap thrills)
“Srinika” — a head-turning timepiece sparkling with 17,524 diamonds and 113 blue sapphires set in 14-karat gold — recently captured a Guinness World Record for the “Most Diamonds Set on a Watch.” The cuff-style, luxury accessory weighs 373.30 grams (13.1 ounces) and is completely wearable, according to Harshit Bansal, founder and CEO of Renani Jewels, Meerut, India.
The timepiece’s impressive diamond count surpassed the previous record holder by 1,666. A watch designed by Aaron Shum Jewelry Ltd., Hong Kong, had held the title since December 2018.
Renani Jewels explained on its website that “Srinika” is not just a watch, it is an emotion.
The piece was inspired by ancient Indian mythology. “Srinika,” means “flower,” which is in the heart of Lord Vishnu. It also signifies Goddess Lakshmi, the Supreme goddess of good fortune.
The watch contains 17,512 natural diamonds with a total weight of 53.98 carats in E-F color and VVS-VS clarity, 12 treated black diamonds totaling 0.03 carats, plus a 0.72-carat natural diamond solitaire of D color and VVS clarity. International Gemological Institute (IGI) was tasked with certifying the authenticity of every gemstone.
Guinness World Records posted an item about “Srinika” on its Twitter account and challenged its readers to spot the 12 black diamonds in the design? In the photo, above, we’ve zoomed into the face of the watch so you can see how the black diamonds were used as hour markers. The large solitaire is set just beyond the watch bezel in the 3 o’clock position.
“We and the whole team have worked really hard for months, and this watch was created with so much passion and greatness,” Bansal said. “One should always seek for new challenges in life. I look forward to new technologies that we can merge with traditional methods of jewelry making. I believe that this technology will make the impossible, possible.”
Bansal told Guinness World Records that the main challenge faced by his company in designing the piece was procuring a vast number of diamonds with the same color, size, shape and clarity.
The company was also required to provide documentation to Guinness World Records that all the diamonds in “Srinika” were sourced from producers certified by the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which prevents so-called “conflict” diamonds from entering the mainstream market.
Renani Jewels is no stranger to Guinness World Record accolades. Back in December 2020, the company introduced us to “The Marigold – The Ring of Prosperity,” which earned a record for the “Most Diamonds in a Single Ring.” The eight-layer ring featured 12,638 natural diamonds.
Jay Glazer has finally found true love. The 53-year-old reporter, who is best known as the NFL Insider for FOX Sports’ award-winning NFL pregame show, FOX NFL Sunday, popped the question to ex-model and clothing designer Rosie Tenison last week in Santa Monica, CA, with a dazzling emerald-cut diamond accented by two rows of round diamonds on a shared-prong band.
The center stone is secured with white-metal claw-style prongs (likely platinum), and the round accent diamonds appear to completely encircle the band.
Having battled depression for years, Glazer explained in a candid engagement message on Instagram how Tenison was able to rescue him from the “gray” and deliver him to the “blue.”
On Sunday, he posted three photos to his Instagram page and wrote, “Sooooo this happened! It only took me 53 years to find true love. For everyone out there… it’s never too late… Because of my gray, I’ve felt unlovable for 53 years! As a result, I’ve sabotaged and pushed others away – that’s what the gray gets you to do.”
He continued, “But it takes a special spirit to stand there with me, help me grow, and feel worthy of feeling loved. That’s who this woman is!! This amazing, incredible soul Rosie Tenison saw my pain but more so saw my heart and said ‘This man takes care of so many people but who takes care of him? I want to be the one to take care of him!'”
Glazer had previously broken up with Tenison, 54, even though he cared for her dearly and called her “the love of his life.” But the journalist needed to embark on a mental health journey before being able to accept her love. He documented his challenges and triumphs in a book titled Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can Too.
“I wouldn’t have been able to receive this love had I not gone on this mental health journey with all of you,” Glazer wrote on Instagram. “Took me 53 years to do the work on myself to see I am worth it, I can beat the gray… I can live in the blue. Thank you Rosie for what’s going to be a lifetime of blue and love.”
Tenison, who has an identical twin sister (also a former model), is now a clothing designer and operates a Los Angeles boutique called Varga.
When he’s not breaking news stories for FOX Sports, Glazer can be found in his Unbreakable Performance Center gym in West Hollywood, where he trains NFL players and military veterans in mixed martial arts.
Glazer’s post spawned comments from sports and Hollywood celebs, including tight end Rob Gronkowski, actor Sylvester Stallone, fellow broadcaster Bonnie Bernstein and Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson.
Jay Glazer has finally found true love. The 53-year-old reporter, who is best known as the NFL Insider for FOX Sports’ award-winning NFL pregame show, FOX NFL Sunday, popped the question to ex-model and clothing designer Rosie Tenison last week in Santa Monica, CA, with a dazzling emerald-cut diamond accented by two rows of round diamonds on a shared-prong band.
The center stone is secured with white-metal claw-style prongs (likely platinum), and the round accent diamonds appear to completely encircle the band.
Having battled depression for years, Glazer explained in a candid engagement message on Instagram how Tenison was able to rescue him from the “gray” and deliver him to the “blue.”
On Sunday, he posted three photos to his Instagram page and wrote, “Sooooo this happened! It only took me 53 years to find true love. For everyone out there… it’s never too late… Because of my gray, I’ve felt unlovable for 53 years! As a result, I’ve sabotaged and pushed others away – that’s what the gray gets you to do.”
He continued, “But it takes a special spirit to stand there with me, help me grow, and feel worthy of feeling loved. That’s who this woman is!! This amazing, incredible soul Rosie Tenison saw my pain but more so saw my heart and said ‘This man takes care of so many people but who takes care of him? I want to be the one to take care of him!'”
Glazer had previously broken up with Tenison, 54, even though he cared for her dearly and called her “the love of his life.” But the journalist needed to embark on a mental health journey before being able to accept her love. He documented his challenges and triumphs in a book titled Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can Too.
“I wouldn’t have been able to receive this love had I not gone on this mental health journey with all of you,” Glazer wrote on Instagram. “Took me 53 years to do the work on myself to see I am worth it, I can beat the gray… I can live in the blue. Thank you Rosie for what’s going to be a lifetime of blue and love.”
Tenison, who has an identical twin sister (also a former model), is now a clothing designer and operates a Los Angeles boutique called Varga.
When he’s not breaking news stories for FOX Sports, Glazer can be found in his Unbreakable Performance Center gym in West Hollywood, where he trains NFL players and military veterans in mixed martial arts.
Glazer’s post spawned comments from sports and Hollywood celebs, including tight end Rob Gronkowski, actor Sylvester Stallone, fellow broadcaster Bonnie Bernstein and Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson.
Credits: Photos via Instagram / jayglazer.
Australia-based Burgundy Diamond Mines has agreed to pay $136 million to acquire Arctic Canadian Diamond Company Ltd. and its prized Ekati Diamond Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories.
Ekati’s new owner was very familiar with the Canadian mining operation. For the past two years, Burgundy has been purchasing top-quality rough diamonds — including extremely rare fancy yellows — from the Ekati mine for cutting and polishing at its facility in Perth, Australia.
Burgundy’s purchase of Ekati will guarantee a steady flow of premium material from a tier-one asset in a tier-one country, according to Burgundy CEO Kim Trutter, and put a bow on the company’s strategy of becoming truly vertically integrated across the diamond value chain.
“Having been involved with Burgundy since 2017, this exciting acquisition completes Burgundy’s vertically integrated business model: bringing the world’s most beautiful diamonds to market from discovery through to design,” Burgundy Diamond Mines executive chair Michael O’Keefe told miningnewsnorth.com.
“Source of origin of diamonds is becoming very, very important,” Rory Moore, president and CEO of Arctic Canadian Diamond Company, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “Canadian diamonds are highly sought after because they come with a guarantee of ethical mining practices, both in terms of treatment of people as well as the environment.”
The recapitalization of Arctic Canadian is also great news for the 1,100 workers at Ekati, and bodes well for the extended lifespan of the mine, which has been operating for nearly 25 years.
Ekati’s famous Misery Pipe has been the source of many of the world’s finest precious yellow diamonds. Ekati, which derives its name from the Tlicho word meaning “fat lake,” is Canada’s first surface and underground diamond mine. It is located approximately 300 km northwest of Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Accessible seasonally via ice roads, the frigid operation is just 200 km south of the Arctic Circle.
In 2022, Ekati generated $494 million in revenue and recovered 4.1 million carats of rough diamonds.
Miningnewsnorth.com estimated Ekati’s diamond reserves at approximately 26.1 million carats, a number that does not include diamonds that might be salvaged via an innovative underwater remote mining system developed by Arctic Canadian and expected to be deployed by Burgundy.
That system would employ a submersible mining crawler and floating platform that would collect and process diamond-bearing kimberlite from the bottom of previously mined open pits that have since filled with water.
Burgundy will also implement applied machine learning technology (artificial intelligence) to identify and explore new kimberlite pipes on the Ekati property, which spans 113,485 hectares.
Credits: Images courtesy of Arctic Canadian Diamond Company.
A fabulous ruby-and-diamond bracelet designed for screen siren Marlene Dietrich and most recently owned by socialite Anne Eisenhower, the granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, could fetch $4.5 million when it hits the auction block at Christie’s New York on June 7.
The bracelet was Dietrich’s favorite piece of jewelry and she famously wore it in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1950 thriller, Stage Fright. In the film’s trailer, Dietrich clasps the cuff while chatting with co-star Richard Todd in a pivotal scene. Hitchcock shot the film in black and white, so the intense color of the rubies had to be left to viewers’ imagination. She also wore the bracelet to the Academy Awards in 1951.
It’s difficult to classify the piece because it has a totally unique design.
Speaking with The New York Times in 1992 (the year Dietrich passed away at the age of 90 and Eisenhower anonymously won the piece at auction), Dietrich’s grandson Peter Riva revealed that author Erich Maria Remarque convinced his lover to “take all her bits of jewelry and make them into one fabulous piece.”
In 1937, jeweler to the stars Louis Arpels conceived Dietrich’s “Jarretière” bracelet from diamond earrings, a diamond necklace, a ruby bracelet and earring set, a couple of pins and more. The cushion-cut Burmese rubies are accented by round, rectangular and baguette-cut diamonds, all set in platinum.
The New York Times has described Dietrich’s Jarretière piece as a “modernist platinum cuff” featuring “an exaggerated, asymmetrical loop covered in cushion-cut rubies set atop twin buckle-like bands of… diamonds.”
If you were wondering, “Jarretière” means “garter” in French.
“This bracelet is legendary in a lot of ways,” Claibourne Poindexter, vice president and jewelry specialist at Christie’s, told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s bold. It’s very large in scale and has a wonderful curvature. She wore it so beautifully in Stage Fright and you get this appreciation for how sculptural the design is. It doesn’t really fit into any period. It’s not art deco jewelry. It’s not retro jewelry. It’s just sort of high glamour. It really is its own work of art.”
The first time it came to auction in 1992, Eisenhower purchased it for $990,000 — an amount that far exceeded its presale estimate of $300,000 to $400,000.
Eisenhower subsequently enlisted Van Cleef & Arpels to design a complementary necklace and earrings — both of which will appear at the upcoming auction.
Now, 31 years later, the Jarretière bracelet is expected to sell in the range of $2.5 million to $4.5 million, although it could sell for more due to a provenance that ties it to one of the most famous movie stars and a member of a pre-eminent American family.
Eisenhower, who passed away last year at the age of 73, was a New York-based interior designer, collector and philanthropist.
The Jarretière bracelet is the top lot from Christie’s upcoming June 7 sale in New York, titled “The Magnificent Jewels of Anne Eisenhower.”
“From Marlene Dietrich to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Anne Eisenhower collection traces the history of the last century through a single collector’s brilliant passion for fine jewels,” said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas. ”Anne Eisenhower had a keen eye for the finest examples of the jeweler’s art, and her collection tells fascinating and interwoven stories of patrons and collectors.”
The collection will be on tour, starting in Los Angeles on March 23 and ending in New York City on June 6. Other stops on the tour will include Shanghai, Paris, Taipei, Geneva and Hong Kong.
Credits: Ruby bracelet photo courtesy of Christie’s. Screen capture from “Stage Fright” trailer via YouTube.com.
