Doris Duke (1912-1993) was an American heiress and the only child of tobacco magnate James Buchanan Duke, who founded the American Tobacco Company and Duke Energy. When her father died in 1925 she inherited the bulk of his estate, and newspapers dubbed her "the richest little girl in the world." Her willingness to spend on jewels made her part of the cohort of wealthy American clients who sustained Cartier New York through the interwar and postwar decades.
The Cartier connection
Pierre Cartier, who built Cartier's American operation into a major force from his base at 653 Fifth Avenue, was adept at cultivating clients of substantial independent means. Duke's dealings with the New York branch were handled by Jules Glaenzer, the branch's chief salesman. In May 1937, after a weekend spent with Duke at her Newport mansion, Glaenzer wrote to Pierre about her briolette diamond earrings, which she had found too yellow. He persuaded her to keep them, explaining they were an old Indian cut impossible to find in the United States and intended for candlelight wear.
In anticipation of the 1937 coronation of King George VI, to which Duke had been invited, she expressed interest in a diamond fringe necklace. After wearing it to a ball in Washington she committed to the purchase, paying $74,000 (close to $1.3 million in current terms). She brought the necklace with her to London for the coronation and, once there, wanted it shortened. Glaenzer had deliberately delayed making the alteration in New York, writing that he had proposed she have the work done in Cartier London "as it increased the probability of more business" and advised Jacques to contact her at the Dorchester.
Postwar legacy
Duke outlived the interwar generation of Cartier clients, dying in 1993. The four-day Christie's estate sale of her jewels and decorative arts in June 2004 raised nearly $33 million for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with the jewels evening sale alone totalling just under $12 million. The top lot, a Cartier Belle Époque diamond and pearl pendant necklace, sold for $2,359,500, then a world auction record for a Cartier diamond necklace.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019), ch. 8 ("Diamonds and Depression: The 1930s"), pp. 349-350 and 361-362
- Duke University Libraries: Doris Duke biographical record
- Newport Restoration Foundation: Rough Point
- "A Closer Look at the Record-Breaking Auction of Doris Duke's Jewelry," Antiques and the Arts Weekly
- "Doris Duke Jewels Set Auction Records at Christie's," Rapaport/Diamonds.net
- Wikipedia: Doris Duke
