Today we focus on rubies and celebrity stories.
At Christie's 2019 "Rare Treasures: The Maharaja and the Mughals" auction, an Art Deco ruby necklace attracted much attention. It was commissioned by the Maharaja of the Indian state of Patiala to be created in 1931.
Geometric, symmetrical, seductively colored rubies and pearls create art Deco in clean lines. Small-grained rubies are not difficult to find, but the color match is not easy to match, which is also one of the strong strengths of the family.
In the 1930s, Cartier's signature "Fruit Tips" series showcased the charm of gemstone carving, which is brittle and second only to diamonds in hardness, and it is not easy to carve flowers and leaf veins, and this difficult process comes from India.
Art Deco style brooch set with carved rubies
In India at that time, there were nearly 600 lords like Maharaja Pattyara, and they were all old and rich.
Cartier's list of Indian royal heirlooms in the upper right corner is the ruby necklace of Maharaja Patiana (1926), which can only be found now
Indian maharajas admired Europe, often competing to take gold and precious stones to Europe in search of jewelers to order jewelry, or to change the treasures to jewelry that was more in line with European aesthetics.
Here, designers in Western culture are also fascinated by India's splendid palaces, but also to please new customers, India has become the inspiration for many big jewelry brands. Back in Europe, these exotic designs have set off a new trend.
Art Deco jewelry, circa 1930, rubies and emeralds were carved
Cartier Ace's ruby, sapphire and emerald colors for designing "Fruit Tips" have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Less well known is that the blue and green combination was Cartier's seminal work during the Art Deco movement.
Blue was not popular in the Indian tradition (sapphires were not used in the maharajah's necklace above), but in contemporary Europe, blue was already a very noble royal representative color.
Cartier's manuscript of a fruit bag necklace designed by Cartier for French socialite Daisy Fellowes in 1936
In 1936, Daisy Fellowes, a legendary woman along with the Duchess of Windsor and Coco Chanel, customised the necklace. At a masquerade ball in 1951, she wore a leopard print dress and a fruit bag between her necklaces to become the focus of the night, leading cartier jewelry to a new fashion of color matching.
Daisy Fellowes
Drawing the eye back to Europe, the ruby legend has been staged. In Early 19th-century France, Napoleon was notoriously spoiled wife and enjoyed buying jewelry for his partner.
In 1810, after marrying the second Empress, Mary Louis, Napoleon asked the royal jeweler Nicole (founder of Chaumet Paris) to design a complete set of ruby jewels containing a crown, inlaid with about 400 rubies, which the jeweler was busy not delivering to Napoleon until January of the following year.
For the rest of her life, Mary's rubies were no less.
On the British side, Elizabeth II now has jewelry that can circle the globe. On the year of her wedding, the people of Myanmar gave her a ruby crown as a wedding gift – set with 96 rubies and prayed to protect her from 96 diseases.
Myanmar, the ancient country of origin of the top ruby, the queen married in 1947, rubies are not as rare as now, high-quality nature is more, and it is a gift to the queen, you can imagine what a top ruby.
The famous "evergreen tree of Hollywood", Elizabeth Taylor, is also a legendary jewelry Icon, for which Christie's held a special jewelry auction. Taylor had eight husbands in his lifetime, and Ruby also witnessed the romance that people still talk about today.
In 1957, Elizabeth Taylor's new third husband, Michael Todd, gave her a complete box of Burmese ruby Cartier jewelry. Unfortunately, the following year, Todd was shipwrecked, and the rubies became Elizabeth Taylor's memorial to her lover. Later, Taylor also wore a ruby necklace on the cover of Vanity Fair.
La Peregrina, the most perfect natural pearl that once circled the European royal family, was later sent to Taylor in 1969 – a Valentine's Day gift from Richard Burton to his wife Taylor. When Taylor gave it to Cartier, he chose to pair it with rubies and paired them with the pearl that set a new world auction record in 2018.
In 1972, Richard Burton gave Taylor a very special ruby necklace as a gift for his 40th birthday. It is a 17th-century antique that was given to his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, by Shah Jahan Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor who later built the Taj Mahal to express his eternal love for his wife.
In 2011, Christie's hosted a special auction for the Elizabeth Taylor Jewelry Collection, and the ruby heart-shaped necklace fetched a hefty $881,8500. A Taylor Collection 8.24 ct Natural Non-Burn Burmese Ruby Ring, 1968, made by Van Cleef & Arpels, at auction at the same time, was valued at $1,000,000 – $1,500,000 and sold for $4,226,500.
Because of the legendary romance, the jewelry collected by celebrities has always been very popular, coincidentally, the youngest and most fashionable former American First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in history, her collection of Van Cleef & Arpels ruby ear clips and rings were also bought at a high price, which was sold at Christie's in 2015 for 28.1w Swiss francs.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was born in July, and the ruby was her birthstone. When Jacqueline remarried in 1968, her husband, Aristotle Onassis, chose a set of Van Cleef & Arpels ruby jewelry as a wedding gift, including a 17.68 ct ruby ring and a pair of ruby (76 ct) ear clips.
In 1988, Jacqueline wears these pairs of earrings
Outside europe and the United States, rubies are also highly prestigious in the Eastern world. The King of Iran and the Tsar of Russia both held ruby crowns, and Iran's pure gold globes were also inlaid with a large number of rubies.
Chinese have always loved jade, and rubies were eaten very well soon after they were introduced to China. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty records that "rubies" were called "pearls of light" at that time, indicating that China had already distinguished red and sapphires during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, more and more people wore rubies in the folk. In the court, red and sapphires were widely used in jewelry.
Among the funeral items of Empress Dowager Cixi, there are a pair of ruby beads, 27 ruby Buddhas, 60 ruby apricots, 40 ruby dates, and 3790 other red and sapphire jewelry and small carvings.
Portrait of Empress Dowager Cixi
The title of chancellor is divided into the types of gemstones worn on the top, and rubies can only be worn by the prince and the first official.
In contemporary China, in addition to diamonds, rubies have become the first choice for many people's wedding rings: the culture is long, the appearance can be beaten, and the enthusiasm emitted by the red seems to coincide with the excitement when deciding to marry him.
There are also many women who buy ruby jewelry for themselves. Some are the first precious jewels in life, and the rubies are just right to start with, and they are very energetic to wear and can calm down various occasions.
Others, after the pursuit of Blingbling, have never looked back in the world of colored gemstones.
Moreover, rubies ranging in size from tens to one carat are under less pressure than diamonds, and as long as they don't have to be large carats like collectors and have to think of chic designs, "ruby financial freedom" is not difficult. And in addition to buying big-name finished products, there is a very cost-effective option such as bare stone + customization.
What is Jewelry? Not just decorations, they are always there for you. At some point in your life, meet you and then accompany you through the circumstances of the rest of your life.
Whether it's cheerful, calm, or gray... Jewelry, is the kind of thing that can be cherished, friends.
Past articles recommended:
❤️ Buy sapphire tangled "with burn" and "no burn"? In fact, more than 90% of consumers choose "there is a burn"!
❤️ What jewelry do you wear to have a sense of luxury?
❤️ Is the center stone of Cartier's sky-high jewelry worthless? Chanel also relied on fake pearls to get by? It turns out that this is the logic of jewelry
-Gem Encyclopedia-
A popular science number that does not allow you not to understand gems and spend money unjustly.
Created by the team of jewelry appraisers of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan). Follow me for more knowledge.