Barbara Hutton was born in New York in 1912, the only grandchild of Frank Woolworth, who had built the Woolworth retail chain into one of the largest commercial operations in the United States. She was one of the wealthiest young women in the world, alongside Doris Duke, the tobacco heiress who was her near-exact contemporary and fellow Cartier client.
Cartier Client
Hutton purchased and commissioned pieces from Cartier New York and Cartier Paris across several decades. Her relationship with the firm was cultivated in part by Jules Glaenzer, the New York branch's leading salesman at 653 Fifth Avenue. Among the documented pieces is a 1933 jade necklace of twenty-seven jadeite beads with a ruby and diamond clasp. In April 2014, after passing through several owners following Hutton's death, it was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong for HK$214 million (around US$27.4 million), setting world auction records for both jadeite and Cartier jewellery, and is now held in the Cartier Collection.
The Grand Duchess Vladimir's Emeralds
Hutton's collecting life intersected with the dispersal of European and Russian imperial jewellery that defined the interwar market. The most notable connection is to the Grand Duchess Vladimir's Colombian emeralds, which Hutton acquired in 1936 and had remodelled several times by both Cartier London and Cartier Paris. The post-war Paris remodelling, an oriental-style necklace that doubled as a headdress and which she wore at her parties at Sidi Hosni in Tangier, was the work of Lucien Lachassagne, one of the senior Cartier Paris designers of the period. The full story of these emeralds, from the Vladimir Palace in St Petersburg to Hutton's Tangier palace, is told in The Cartiers.
After Hutton
Her jewellery was dispersed through multiple auction sales during her lifetime and after her death in 1979. Her collecting life traces the broader history of the interwar jewellery market: American wealth absorbing the dispersed treasures of European and Russian aristocracy, with Cartier as the intermediary.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019), ch. 6 and ch. 8
- Hans Nadelhoffer, Cartier: Jewelers Extraordinary (Thames and Hudson, 1984; revised 2007)
- Sotheby's Hong Kong, Magnificent Jewels and Jadeite Spring Sale, lot 1847 (April 2014)
- Wikipedia: Barbara Hutton
