A dazzling piece of jewellery from the Diamond King could be yours
Shine bright like a Harry Winston diamond.
Imagine having so much faith in the postal system that you’d be willing to trust it with a centuries-old, 45-carat diamond. It’s impossible to fathom now — I’m still waiting for a thank you letter I sent in February to arrive at its intended destination — but that’s exactly what Harry Winston did with the Hope Diamond in 1958.
The dark greyish-blue gemstone — which inspired the fictional Heart of the Ocean necklace in the 1997 film Titanic — was sent wrapped in plain brown paper from Winston’s New York office to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C, where it remains to this day. It is estimated to be worth between $200-350 million.
Richard Winston — Harry's nephew — showing him the Hope Diamond.
The jeweller acquired the probably now priceless sparkler in 1949 from the estate of the mining heiress and socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean (1886-1947), but it was far from his most legendary purchase. The Jonker Diamond (726 carats), the Vargas Diamond (also 726 carats; Winston chased the stone across three continents in order to get his mitts on it), the Star of Independence (75.52 carats) and the Taylor-Burton Diamond (a meagre 69.42 carats, but purchased in 1969 by actor Richard Burton for his wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor) all passed through his hands. So prodigious was Winston’s collecting that it is estimated he handled one-third of the world’s most famous gemstones during his career, earning him the moniker ‘King of Diamonds’. In a 1952 LIFE feature, it was claimed that Winston’s collection of historic jewels was second in size only to the Royal Family’s.
'This is your public service announcement to sharpen your elbows because Hancocks London is selling a pair of Harry Winston diamond earrings'
The stud part of the earrings for sale via Hancocks London — without the chandelier-style drops.
Winston (né Weinstein) was born in 1896 in New York to Ukrainian-Jewish parents who ran a modest jewellery shop on the city’s Upper West Side. He was a natural gemmologist with terrific taste. When he was not yet a teenager, he spotted a two-carat emerald in a pawnshop, bought it for 20¢ and sold it, two days later, for $800 — about $30,000 in today’s money.
The world leader in the diamond trade died of a heart attack in 1978, but his eponymous brand remains synonymous with the acquisition of exceptional stones. ‘There was a stone that came to auction, five years ago, called the Pink Legacy,’ says Sam Stirrat, a bespoke jewellery designer specialising in engagement rings and fine jewellery, and the founder of Blackacre, who went to admire it while it was briefly on display. ‘It was an 18-carat, Fancy Vivid pink diamond and it sold for a world-record price [$50 million or $2.6m per carat].’
The original insurance appraisal accompanies the earrings.
The stone was sold by Christie’s, which remarked at the time that Fancy Vivid pink diamonds of more than 10 carats are virtually unheard of, and that in 250 years of their auction history, only four such stones have ever appeared for sale. ‘I spoke to the people at the auction house [Christie’s],’ continued Stirrat, ‘and they didn’t expect it to be bought by a jewellery house.’ But bought by a jewellery house it was — in a minor bidding war that lasted for only five, fast-paced minutes — and there will be no prizes for guessing which one.
Unsurprisingly, demand for pieces produced during Winston’s lifetime remains high and when they come up for sale they tend to disappear fast. This then is your public service announcement to sharpen your elbows because Hancocks London is selling a pair of Harry Winston diamond ‘day-to-night’ chandelier earrings that date to the 1950s. Set with approximately 28 carats of the lustrous stones, the studs feature a scrolling loop of baguette-cut diamonds next to a cluster of marquise-cut ones at the top, off of which drops an articulated cascade of more baguette-cut diamonds. This cascade can be detached.
Hazel Brooks and Cedric Gibbons: she starred in at least 15 films and a photo of her by Durward Garyhill was voted Most Provocative Still of 1947 by the International Society of Photographic Arts in January 1948.
The earrings belonged to Hazel Brooks, the second wife of Cedric Gibbons, the man who designed the Academy Award statuette. An 11-time winner of the very award he created, for art direction, Gibbons’ name appears in the credits of nearly 1,500 films. He had ‘an eye trained on design at the highest level,’ says Amy Burton, creative director of Hancocks. ‘He would have known exactly what he was looking at in a pair of Winston earrings this exceptional.’
Cedric Gibbons's design for the Academy Award statuette. It depicts an Art Deco-style knight holding a crusader’s sword while standing on a film reel.
