Elizabeth Taylor (27 February 1932 – 23 March 2011) collected jewellery with a public appetite that made her one of the most recognised gemstone owners of her era. Her Cartier connections centre on the Taylor-Burton Diamond, a 69.42-carat pear-shaped stone that passed through Cartier New York in circumstances that became part of its legend.
The Taylor-Burton Diamond
The stone was sold as Lot 133 at Parke-Bernet auction in New York on 23 October 1969, where Cartier secured it for $1,050,000, setting a new auction record for a publicly sold jewel. Robert Kenmore, bidding for the Kenton Corporation (Cartier's parent company at the time), was the winning bidder. Richard Burton then bought the diamond from Cartier a few days later, reportedly for $1.1 million, for Taylor. Cartier retained the right to display the stone in its New York and Chicago premises, and thousands of visitors queued at 653 Fifth Avenue to see it. Taylor commissioned a platinum necklace setting for the stone.
She first wore the diamond publicly at Princess Grace's 40th birthday celebration, a Scorpio-themed ball held at the Hôtel Hermitage in Monte Carlo on 12 November 1969, and wore it again at the 42nd Academy Awards on 7 April 1970. Biographical accounts report that Lloyd's of London imposed conditions on public wear of the stone and required armed guards during transport.
After Taylor and Burton divorced in 1976, the diamond was sold in 1978-79 to the New York jeweller Henry Lambert for a price variously reported between $3 and $5 million. Lambert later sold it to Robert Mouawad.
Other Cartier connections
Alfred Durante designed jewellery for Taylor at Cartier. She was also the owner of La Peregrina, a historic pearl with its own centuries of provenance, which she famously recounted nearly losing when one of her Pekingese puppies played with it.
Taylor's collecting habits placed her at the intersection of Hollywood celebrity and the old gemstone trade, a space she occupied with a public candour that made her acquisitions front-page news in ways that earlier collectors would not have recognised.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019), ch. 11
- Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century (HarperCollins, 2010)
- Ian Balfour, Famous Diamonds (5th ed., Antique Collectors' Club, 2009)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: Elizabeth Taylor
- National Jeweler: Tracking Down the Taylor-Burton
- Wikipedia: Taylor-Burton Diamond
- Wikipedia: Elizabeth Taylor
