Episode 7: The Cartiers and The British Crown - Part II

About This Talk

He came through the back door.

King Edward VIII could not be seen entering Cartier's New Bond Street showroom — so he slipped in through the Albemarle Street entrance, was shown to a private room, and quietly bought gifts for Wallis Simpson. When it came time for an engagement ring, Jacques Cartier's London manager dispatched a trusted salesman to Baghdad with instructions so secret that not even the cost could be telegraphed back. He returned with a small leather pouch. Inside: one emerald, the size of a bird's egg. It was split in two — one half sold to an American businessman, the other set in platinum for a ring that would change British history. The abdication followed, and then the 1937 coronation: the same date, a different king. Part II then spans four decades of royal commissions — Queen Elizabeth's white wardrobe for the 1938 Paris State Visit, rebuilt in weeks after her mother's death by Norman Hartnell; wartime Cartier London, where a salesman offered the showroom to de Gaulle as headquarters and a flamingo brooch was made from the Duchess of Windsor's own remounted gems; the Greville Bequest of 1942, when a society hostess left Queen Elizabeth the most significant private gift of jewels in the 20th century; Princess Elizabeth choosing her own wedding gift from the Nizam of Hyderabad — then the richest man in the world — from Cartier's London stock; the 54.5-carat Williamson Pink Diamond, found in Tanzania weeks before the 1947 wedding and set in a brooch the Queen wore for nearly 70 years; the 1953 Coronation, fully televised for the first time; and the Duchess of Windsor's Cartier panthers, which sold for $7 million at auction in 2010. Delivered with Caroline de Guitaut, Deputy Surveyor of the Queen's Works of Art — responsible for over 700,000 objects across 13 royal residences — this lecture draws on the Royal Collection archives, family letters, and the personal memories of Jean-Jacques Cartier, Francesca's grandfather, who ran the London branch for thirty years.