My personal view about the relative scale of aristocratic jewel collections is that they were generally very small. lady Londonderry and lady Dudley were famous for their jewels and I believe they were probably atypical. Royals would receive large amount of jewels but theses were paid for by large public subscriptions. I would also say that Queen Mary received far more pieces of jewellery than Queen Alexandra did suggesting that the prices were starting to come down, perhaps thanks to new mines. I’m not sure exactly how rich Mary Leiter was, certainly poorer than Consuelo Vanderbilt or Mary Goelet. If we look at some rich families did the Devonshires or Rutlands or Beauforts or Derby’s have large collections. I think we need to look at several families rather than say that because one family had four tiaras several did. And also remember that lady Curzons pearl necklace would have been far more valuable than it would be today. A good pearl necklace was a couple of times more valuable than a comparable quality diamond necklace.
219
Responses
« Back to index | View thread »