The Flamingo brooch was made by Cartier in 1940 for Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor. It depicts a flamingo with a curved neck and one raised wing, the body set in rubies, the wing in sapphires, with emerald and citrine accents throughout. The frame is 18-carat gold and 950 platinum. Among the pieces in the Duchess's Cartier collection, it is the one most reproduced in scholarly and popular accounts of mid-century animal jewellery.
The piece was completed in Paris in the spring of 1940 and delivered to the Duke and Duchess just before their departure as German forces advanced on the city. The Duchess was photographed wearing it in Madrid on 23 June 1940, and she wore it frequently through the war years.
Design and Materials
The design is attributed to Peter Lemarchand, a designer working at Cartier Paris. The Duke of Windsor was closely involved in the commission; the brooch's distinctive hinged legs, which allow the flamingo's feet to move, are attributed to his specific request.
An early design concept featured an enamel body with gold legs. At the Duke and Duchess's request, this was revised to a composition almost entirely set with stones. The gem specifications, as published in the Sotheby's London 2010 auction catalogue, are as follows: 102 circular brilliant and single-cut diamonds (9.53ct total), 42 calibré-cut rubies (10.35ct), 42 calibré-cut sapphires (11.10ct), 42 calibré-cut emeralds (7.30ct), with a cabochon citrine in the beak and two small cabochon sapphires for the eye and beak fitting. The brooch measures approximately 92 to 95mm in height and weighs 58.1 grams.
The stones used to create the brooch were in part repurposed from existing pieces belonging to the Duchess, including a necklace and four bracelets. This recycling of gems may have been a practical response to the disruption of trade routes at the outbreak of war.
The brooch belongs to a broader category of jewelled bird brooches produced at Cartier during the interwar and wartime period, discussed under Cartier Bird Brooches. The Flamingo is distinct from most of the bird brooches of the same period in its scale and chromatic ambition.
The Bahamas Connection
The Duke of Windsor was appointed Governor of the Bahamas in August 1940, arriving in Nassau shortly afterwards. Flamingos are native to the Bahamas and one of the territory's most recognisable symbols. Sotheby's and subsequent accounts have linked the choice of a flamingo as subject to the Duke's Caribbean posting, though the timing complicates that narrative: the brooch was completed in Paris in the spring of 1940, several months before the Bahamas appointment was made. The design phase would have begun earlier still. Whether the flamingo was chosen in anticipation of the posting, or the connection is retrospective, remains unclear.
Auction History and Current Location
Wallis Simpson died in April 1986. Her estate directed that her jewellery be sold and the proceeds given to the Institut Pasteur in Paris, as her husband the Duke of Windsor had agreed with the French government before his death in 1972. Sotheby's Geneva held the first sale in April 1987 under the title "The Jewels of the Duchess of Windsor." The Flamingo brooch realised a significant sum (some press accounts of the time cited different figures, a discrepancy that likely reflects different reporting of the hammer price against the total including buyer's premium).
The brooch was offered for sale again at Sotheby's London in November 2010, consigned by an anonymous single owner who had purchased twenty pieces at the 1987 Geneva sale. The Cartier Collection subsequently acquired the piece, where it has since been exhibited internationally.
Exhibition History
The brooch has been shown at: Goldsmiths' Hall, London (1988); the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris (1989); the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the "Cartier and America" exhibition in San Francisco (2009 to 2010).
Sources
- The Cartier Museum at the Goldsmiths' Hall (Goldsmiths' Company / Cartier, 1988)
- Burollet, Chazal & Piver-Soyez, L'Art de Cartier (Paris-Musées, 1989)
- Martin Chapman, Cartier and America (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco / Prestel, 2009)
- Sotheby's, Exceptional Jewels and Precious Objects Formerly in the Collection of The Duchess of Windsor, lot 20 (London, November 2010)
