Calvin Klien to sell Duchess of Windsor's natural pearl necklace

Caitlin

Caitlin

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Sotheby's: Calvin, Kelly Klein to Sell Pearls, Diamonds from Duchess of Windsor By Jeff Miller.

Sotheby's New York will offer three lots of magnificent natural pearl and diamond jewels from the collection of Kelly and Calvin Klein on December 4. The auction house calls the offerings of historical importance as the Kleins purchased the pieces during a 1987 Sotheby's Geneva auction of jewels from the Duchess of Windsor collection.
Sotheby's describes the top offerings as a single-strand natural pearl and diamond necklace (est. $1.5 million to $2 million,) a natural pearl and diamond pendant (est. $400,000 to $600,000,) and a pair of black and white natural pearl and diamond earclips (est. $300,000 to $500,000.)
In the 20 years since the Windsor sale, few pieces from that incomparable collection have been re-offered at auction, and none as significant as the iconic natural pearls acquired by the Kleins. The pearls will be featured extensively worldwide in a pre-sale exhibition before the December sale.
Duchess of Windsor natural pearl necklace


Here for rest of story
 
That is about the most beautiful natural pearl necklace that I have ever seen. It is more perfectly matched than the Baroda pearls, one strand of which went for 7million, wasn't it? Then the pendent too. Those are some royal pearls!
 
I agree -- soooo elegant! I'd need to lose some weight before I could wear a 14" choker.;)
 
Yes, it is very pretty. Why are they knotted on black thread? Or is that a photographic fluke? The Baroda's were originally 7 strands then redesigned and owned by royalty. Perhaps the most beautiful of the 7 strands haven't been displayed. Plus, I just like their character. I doubt these will fetch as high a price.
 
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knotty panda said:
If these pearls were part of the Crown Jewels, I'm surprised they let riff-raff like the Duchess make off with them.
Click to expand...

Hi Knotty,

I wouldn't exactly brand the Duchess of Windsor as "riff-raff". Certainly she wasn't liked by the royal family, particularly the late Queen Mother, but she took good care of her David and he was the one that was doing most of the jewel procuring for her. Most all of her jewels were gifts purchased by her devoted husband. After her death, the jewellery collection was auctioned off and the proceeds donated to the Pasteur Institue as a gift to the French government(who treated the couple very well).

The Duchess did not make off with any jewels either. If she did have anything super important from the British royal collection, it would have been given back. After the death of the Duke, the Duchess was on passable turms with her husband's family. She returned many of the Duke's personal items to them. Much more than she needed to. She also gave away some jewels from her collection to Princess Michael
which included the Cartier "Cherries" brooch, huge cabochon emerald earrings and other pieces.

I think the paragraphs below tell the history of either one or the OTHER natural pearl strands the Duchess of Windsor was known to wear:

"In 1953, before Queen Mary's death, she made a gift of a natural pearl necklace to her son David. She obviously knew he would give it to Wallis."

The necklace was a choker made of 28 very large natural pearls with an oval diamond clasp. It sold in 1987(Sotheby's) for $733,333."

Personally, I doubt that Queen Mary, when giving the natural pearl strand to her son, said to herself, "Here, let me give this incredibly lovely and rare royal jewel to that "riff-raff" of a woman David is married to!". She meant to give Wallis the necklace as a gesture of goodwill, however little of it she had.

Slraep
 
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what a beautiful necklace! She had a great collection. I saw some of her necklaces at an exhibit here in San Francisco.
 
I think a gift of jewels from an ex-king is still pretty royal- I eagerly await what it will fetch. I love that Queen Mary story and it looks like this necklace might be the one, doesn't it?. The one with the pendent has 28 pearls and a diamond clasp. She is clearly wearing two strand in the photo that look great together. The DoW's jewel collection is one of the most prestigious in the world ever collected by one woman and pieces of it are highly sought after and fetch the highest prices at auction.

Personally, I love the barooda necklace. I saw an article about it that listed which pearls off which strands went into the single strand. The single strand contains the cream of the crop. Although most of the pearls are still left, no other strand will be as fulsome as the one that sold recently.

I think it was strung with white thread- my question is what kind of glue is the pendent pearl adhered with?.
 
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"my question is what kind of glue is the pendent pearl adhered with?."
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You know what they say about hair color, only her hairdresser knows for sure and I suspect its the same with the how and what of royal jewelry, only the jewellers knows for sure. And I'm sure they aren't telling.
DFrey
 
Thanks, Pernula, for pointing that out, about the double strand. I wondered about the kind of pearls, too. They are so huge! I wish we could get a closer look. Which Queen Mary did these belong to? I'm not up on royalty.
 
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knotty panda said:
Which Queen Mary did these belong to? I'm not up on royalty.
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Oh sorry, I thought I made the answer obvious. It's the Queen Mary that gave birth to the Duke of Windsor(David).

I'm re-quoting myself here: "In 1953, before Queen Mary's death, she made a gift of a natural pearl necklace to her son David. She obviously knew he would give it to Wallis."

Her full name is: Victoria Mary Augusta Louis Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; Known as: Princess May. Later, Queen Mary.

Slraep
 
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I was the one who posted the article on the Baroda sale, you'd think I'd remember it was a double! Details. details;) . The same still goes, whether single or double - it was cherry picked for the double.
 
Thanks, Slraep and Sueki: All these royal folks are hard for me to discern. So, do we know where she got them? I mean, we still don't know if they are south seas or possibly freshwater, right?
 
knotty panda said:
So, do we know where she got them? I mean, we still don't know if they are south seas or possibly freshwater, right?
Click to expand...

Well, deducing from the two previous paragraphs I quoted, it seems really, really, really likely that the necklace comes from the Duchess' mother-in-law, since there aren't that many natural pearl chokers consisting of 28 huge spheroids with an oval platinum biggish-diamond encrusted clasp floating around out there.

I would bet that the pearls are oriental, just because of their size. I would tend to think freshwater if the strand were lengthy and the pearls size were smaller. But, anyone please, feel free to correct me if you know otherwise. I'm just guessing. I do know for sure though that the huge gorgeous pendant dangling off the choker was bought and given to the Duchess by her husband.

Slraep
 
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The news release at Sotheby's give a bit more detail and pictures. :cool:

LINK TO SOTHEBY'S NEWS (Link opens Pdf File).

No idea what species the pearls might have come from. And freshwater Vs. salt is not always mentioned for natural pearls... but freshwater are more unusual. So I'd bet saltwater. And the regions producing pearls back when this strand might have been matched would be the Gulf, South America and SE Asia (Burma, Indonesia). Which gives... Pinctada Maxima and P. Margaritifera and ? You tell me.

Can only imagine that to assemble a necklace like that the pearls would have made their way through many jeweler's stocks over time from all over the world. As it would happen with the components of a gem necklace today - could be from one single mine or region, but not necessarily. Just a hunch, of course.
 
Although it is hard to follow the life of a pearl once it lands in royal hands, we know for a fact about the freshwater necklace Queen Mary I gave to the Earl of Norfolk, whose family has kept it perfectly for 400 years. It is now traveling with the big musuem exhibit. AMNH?

We also know that the largest quantities of pearls, ever, from anywhere, were pouring out of the Americas into royalty's coffers during the first QE reign. Queen E I amassed hundreds of pounds, if not a ton, of pearls from the Americas alone, not to mention the ones from local rivers and other sources like the Persian Gulf. And of course the same goes for Q Isabella. This does not count the ones they inherited with their crowns, many of which are probably still being worn.

Pearls were mixed and matched every generaton and restrung so there is no telling about where any one pearl caame from, but the book of the pearl (Kunz 1908) has dozens of photos and paintings of royalty in their pearls and a very good history of how the Americas were plundered of both salt and freshwater pearls. It was so bad the pearl beds have never recovered!

BTW Copies of the $25.00 Dover edition of the book of the pearl are hard to ifind and cost $100.00+++ when you do! It is out of print. I wrote to Dover to ask then to issue it again. Maybe some of you can do that too. Thank goodness I got my copy years ago!
 
Caitlin Williams said:
the book of the pearl (Kunz 1908) ....

BTW Copies of the $25.00 Dover edition of the book of the pearl are hard to ifind and cost $100.00+++ when you do! It is out of print.
Click to expand...


Out of print but available online free of charge at Farlang as a facsimile, pictures & all :)

LINK to Farlang's: Book of the pearl

I was about to buy a hard-scooped copy when they put it up. Phew!
 
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