Among the most valuable items of the rather large Cory bequest – I found it particularly interesting how many colourful and artisanal pieces were included in the sisters's collection, both gemstones and paste – is the set of 46 dress ornaments made for Catherine the Great in 1764 and sold by the Bolshevik government after the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The suite originally included a necklace and bracelets and combined the diamond parts with strung garnet beads.
While the V&A has the dress ornaments photographed in groups of six (and one shot of the whole group) the inventory of the Cory bequest shows them assembled as a (rather long) necklace or girdle.
The three bow brooches above the assembled necklace are probably Russian as well, but they "are not listed in the Diamond Fund catalogue compiled at the order of the Bolshevik government and they were not amongst that part of the Russian royal jewellery sold by a syndicate at Christie's on 16 March 1927. However, Dr. S. A. Amelekhina (State Museums of the Moscow Kremlin) states that the Diamond Fund Catalogue is known to have been incomplete."
The numbers in the inventory of the Cory bequest are all ending with "1951", so I suspect it took a while until the obviously very comprehensive collection was properly inventoried after it was bequeathed in 1947.
A private website of the extended Cory family has a short account of a visit to the V&A with a reference to a photo of Lady Cory in the museum's collection where she's "wearing all her diamonds – the tiara, 3 bows, both corsages, 46 paisley leaf pieces, necklace, and earrings and she looks magnificent – every inch a lady." Unfortunately this seems to be one of the photos the V&A hasn't made accessible online.
As Beth already has pointed out, both Lethbridge sisters were passionate and accomplished textile artists, trained at the Royal School of Needlework in London. Among the scarce portraits of Jane Cory available online is one that shows her with a rather peculiar embroidered casket. I think she's wearing (possibly a modified version of) the black enameled necklace (without the pearl tassels) and the locket now in the V&A.
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