Daisy Fellowes (1890–1962) was a wealthy and sharply stylish figure in European society between the wars and through the Second World War, and one of the most influential clients of both Cartier Paris and Cartier London in those decades. She bought jewels because she loved them, had the funds to buy them, and her choices carried weight beyond the pieces themselves.
The Iris Brooch
Around 1940, at the height of the London Blitz and with many of the English Art Works craftsmen drafted or redirected to war work, Cartier London produced a flower brooch for Daisy Fellowes: an iris in diamonds and sapphires with an emerald stem. That a piece of this quality was made under those conditions is part of its story; the New Bond Street showroom remained open throughout the war, engagement rings in particular remaining in steady demand, but the workshop upstairs was running at significantly reduced capacity.
The iris brooch came to auction at Sotheby's in 2009 and sold for CHF 662,500, well above its pre-sale estimate of CHF 155,000–255,000. The result reflected both the strength of her name among collectors and the specific appeal of the piece.
As a Cartier Client
Fellowes was not the passive kind of client who simply spent money and wore what was put in front of her. She was strong, chic, and deliberately contrary in her tastes, which gave her choices a particular influence. Her choices carried influence because they reflected genuine taste rather than convention, and the dynamic between client and house (where a client's preferences shape what the firm produces, rather than the other way around) was characteristic of how Cartier worked with its strongest clients in this period.
Her iris brooch is discussed in detail at Daisy Fellowes's Cartier Iris Brooch.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019), ch. 8 (“Diamonds and Depression: The 1930s”) and ch. 10 (“Cousins in Austerity, 1945–1956”)
- Wikipedia: Daisy Fellowes
- Sotheby's, Magnificent Jewels, Geneva, November 2009, lot 392: Exceptional sapphire, emerald and diamond brooch, Cartier, 1940
- Europa Star Jewellery, "Magnificent Jewels of Historical Importance at Sotheby's Geneva" (November 2009): confirms CHF 662,500
