Jewel affairs

Compiled by DEIRDRE MCQUILLAN

THIS BEING THE season of glitter and sparkle, it’s a time when jewellery comes into its own.

It was certainly in the news this week with the record-breaking prices for Elizabeth Taylor’s vast collection of gems, auctioned at Christie’s. On the first day alone, the auction raised $115 million (€88 million), including more than $11 million for the famous La Peregrina necklace.

The magnificent 50.6 carat Peregrina pearl, discovered by a slave in the 1500s, ended up as part of the Spanish royal jewels and later belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. After Richard Burton bought it at auction for $37,000 in 1969, as a Valentine’s gift for her, Taylor commissioned Cartier to design a setting for it. Before that she nearly lost it when it dropped off its chain in a hotel room in New York. It was eventually found in the mouth of her Pekinese puppy.

Taylor’s girandole diamond earrings, a present from her first husband Mike Todd, sold on Tuesday for $374,000. Taylor always loved dangling earrings, and once, window shopping in the Place Vendôme, she was smitten by a pair of long paste chandeliers. “The more I swished my head back and forth, the more they twinkled,” she said. Some months later back in New York, she went to put them on, but they felt different. Todd told her he had taken the paste ones and had them made up with real diamonds. “We were a bit late for the party,” she said.

Another show-stopping gift from Burton, the Taj Mahal diamond necklace given for her 40th birthday, sold for more than $8 million. The breathtaking 33.19 carat Krupp diamond ring, a present from Burton in 1968, went to a private Asian buyer.

Taylor’s passion for jewellery started at the age of 12 when she saved for a brooch for her mother. She had a vast knowledge of gems. Burton used to say that she only knew one word in Italian and it was Bulgari.

Jewellery’s magic takes many forms. Here in Ireland, the exhibition of 21st Century Icons currently running at Rathfarnham Castle shows how 21 of Ireland’s most innovative and creative makers revisited the torc, that ancient Irish status symbol, for inspiration for modern neckpieces.

So, with jewellery in mind for the festive season wishlist, we’ve assembled a selection to appeal to everybody, from serious buyers and collectors to style mavens, from little baubles costing less than €20 to a whopping great diamond ring the price of an apartment. Faux or fine, take your pick.