An emerald and diamond brooch circa 1960s, designed in a pear motif. The body is set with 70 round cabochon emeralds weighing approximately 7.70 total carats, with single cut diamond accents and suspended from diamond accented foliage of bead set, single cut and round brilliant cut diamonds. It is completed with hinged double pin stem and trombone closure.
This emerald and diamond brooch is marked France / 18KT / 750, with workshop marks “pHb” and “JW.” The 76 single cut diamonds weigh approximately .55 total carat (G-H-I color, VS1-SI1 clarity) and the (42) round brilliant cut diamonds weigh approximately 1.32 total carats (G-H color, VS1-SI1 clarity). Total diamond weight of 1.87 carats.
1.75 in.
11.5 dwt.
From the Estate of Beatrice Fabry Seligman and by Descent.
Born in Paris, France in 1929 to Jules and Bella Feldman, Russian émigrés who fled the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Beatrice spent her life in Paris, New York, London, and finally returning to Paris in 1967 where she lived until her death in 2009. Beatrice acquired her jewelry pieces from her childhood friend, Serge Weissager, who, according to family history, was one of the Russian émigrés employed by Van Cleef & Arpels for their design work.
Sold for $4,600 at Leland Little Auctions
Emeralds are regarded as the traditional birthstone for May as well as the traditional gemstone for the astrological signs of Cancer.
One of the quainter anecdotes about emeralds was told by the 16th-century historian Brantôme, who referred to the many impressive emeralds the Spanish under Cortez had brought back to Europe from Latin America. On one of Cortez’s most notable emeralds he had the text engraved, Inter Natos Mulierum non sur-rexit mayor (“Among those born of woman there hath not arisen a greater,” Matthew 11:11) which referred to John the Baptist. Brantôme considered engraving such a beautiful and simple product of nature sacrilegious and considered this act the cause for Cortez’s loss of an extremely precious pearl (to which he dedicated a work, A beautiful and incomparable pearl), and even for the death of King Charles IX of France, who died soon afterward.
The chief deity of one of India’s most famous temple, the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, is the goddess Meenakshi, whose idol is traditionally thought to be made of emerald. Reference: Wikipedia
