LONDON — The late Princess Margaret’s jewels will go on sale at Christie’s later this year in the most important royal jewelry auction since Wallis Simpson’s gems went under the hammer in 1987.
Christie’s London, which is handling the sale on June 13, will make an official announcement of the sale on Monday. Princess Margaret was the sister of Queen Elizabeth II.
“This is a royal collection that tells a very personal story,” said Leslie Field, a royal jewelry expert who collaborated on the catalogue.
“The collection is evocative of the way an aristocratic woman lives her life, and includes the first pieces of jewelry given to her when she was christened,” said Field. “There are also typical pieces that any well-born, aristocratic woman could expect to receive during her lifetime.”
The 200 pieces include the tiny pearl and ruby necklace the princess received as a child, the five strands of creamy pearls she received on her 18th birthday from her grandmother, Queen Mary, and the Victorian diamond Poltimore tiara, which the princess wore in 1960 on the day she married photographer Tony Armstrong-Jones, who became Lord Snowdon. The couple later separated and divorced.
The sale also features the organic, contemporary pieces the princess, who died in 2002, had commissioned in the Sixties and Seventies from designers Andrew Grima and John Donald, and small mementos like the hedgehog brooch that was a gift from her friend Drue Heinz.
The collection has been valued at $2.6 million, based on its intrinsic value alone. It is widely expected to fetch more at auction. The Duchess of Windsor’s jewels, which were mostly contemporary, design-driven pieces commissioned from jewelers such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Harry Winston, brought in $45.3 million in Geneva in 1987, a record for a jewelry sale.