With Valentine’s Day just around the corner I thought of writing about
some interesting Valentine’s gift which made history. The first thing came into
my mind was the famous 11.8 Million pearl “La Peregrina”. This historical pearl is 500 years old, and it’s
one of the largest perfectly symmetrical pear-shaped pearls in the world. It was
passed from the African slave to European kings and queens. Prince Philip
II of Spain gave it as a wedding gift to his wife, Mary Tudor of England, and
most recently it belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. Her husband Richard Burton purchased
the pearl at an auction price of $37,000 and gave it as a Valentine's Day gift
during their first marriage. At the time Burton purchased the "La
Peregrina" it was suspended as a pendant to a delicate pearl linked
necklace, which did not suit their taste. Therefore they decided to have the
necklace re-designed using the expertise of Al Durante of Cartier. The result
was the masterpiece shown below consisting of pearls, rubies and diamonds. The redesigned
piece has a detachable pendant embellished with an old mine-cut and rose-cut
diamond and silver foliate bail suspended from a circular-cut diamond flame
motif set with a pear-shaped ruby .
In her book "My Love Affair with Jewelry,"
Elizabeth Taylor wrote of her delight in receiving the amazing gift, the La
Peregrina, and the panic and horror struck when it went missing 20 minutes
later.
Taylor saw one of her two
Lhasa apsos crawling in her pink shag carpeted room, and then she heard the crunch. She said “I know where the pearl is” Liz grabbed the dog and put her hand into
its mouth. She got the dog to spit it out. She was afraid it would crack, later
she found that it suffered only a couple of scratches. The La Peregrina was then
safely retrieved from the mouth her pet dogs.
This was not the only time that the pearl was misplaced
there is another instance earlier when the pearl was owned by James
Hamilton, the fifth Duke of Abercorn, whose wife misplaced
it at a family wedding and later found it in the bride’s train.
Did all these
mishaps added to the La Perigrina’s price of 11.8 Million?
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