Here’s a bit of breaking news for you: jewelry is not cheap. In fact, it’s oftentimes downright expensive – sometimes even wildly so. All right, so that’s admittedly not exactly breaking news.
Here’s a little something that actually is: it’s plenty possible for you to acquire affordable and beautiful jewelry that will look absolutely stunning when you wear it. How? If you carefully select the best cubic zirconia available then you’ll have jewelry that can and will pass for the real thing. Birkat Elyon has only the highest quality cz rings made with real gold or platinum bands that are (almost) as stunningly beautiful as you are.
Getting back to the original point, though, some jewelry collections are so extravagantly expensive than most of us could never even fathom being able to splurge on a single piece in said collections. Below are 10 opulent private collections that sold at auction for absurdly large sums of money. Take a look at the list and then browse Birkat’s site to find the best cubic zirconia jewelry to help you affordably assemble an impressive collection that’s all your own.
Elizabeth Taylor
No one should be shocked to find movie star Elizabeth Taylor landing on this list. The Academy Award-winning actress is well-known for her love of jewelry, and her private collection sold for an almost embarrassing $137,235,575 at Christies’ New York in December of 2011, according to Jewels Du Jour.
Jewelry lovers the world over watched the Taylor collection auction with rapt attention as it smashed records over a period of two days. La Pergrina, a 16th-century pearl necklace, was the centerpiece of the auction, selling for $11,842,500. The sale of La Pergrina established new records for both a historical piece and a pearl jewel of any sort.
The Duchess of Windsor
Wallis Simpson’s beauty was enough to convince England’s King Edward to abdicate his throne and leave it to his younger brother so that he could marry the twice-divorced American socialite in 1937. It’s no surprise then that the Duke spent the pair’s 35-year marriage spoiling his wife with exotic jewels from around the world. In 1987, the Duchess of Windsor’s impressive – to put it lightly – collection fetched $50.3 million at a Sotheby’s two-day auction.
More than 300 pieces were included in the sale, and many of them attracted voracious bidders. For instance, a Van Cleef & Arpels diamond and ruby feather brooch was valued to be worth about $112,000. Its actual selling price was an astounding $806,000.
Lily Safra
Brazilian philanthropist and social figure Lily Safra was able to sell $37,924,551 worth of jewelry at auction in 2012. There are two incredible facts behind this particular acution. The first is that the 70-lot sale represented just a portion of her collection. The second is that she gave the entirety of the profits away to 32 different charities.
The most expensive lot was a whopping 32.08-carat Burmese ruby and diamond ring. The Chaumet piece went for more than $6.7 million and was renamed “The Hope Ruby.”
Anonymous Royal House
Contrasting the first three well-known ladies on this list, the next private collection sale to crack the top 10 came from an anonymous royal house. The 2006 sale of 317 lots of jewelry and watches for $31,360,932 was the biggest such sale at the time since the Duchess of Windsor’s 1987 auction.
“The Gulf Pearl Parure,” the breath-taking centerpiece from Harry Winston was purchased for over four million dollars. Its 193 natural pearls and 166 diamonds make for an exquisite set of jewelry. The set is so magnificent, that it sold for almost four times as much as another parure from the same auction that boasted 721 pearls.
Luz Milo Patiño
Rubies, diamonds, pearls, emeralds and sapphires of the highest quality were part of this 1989 Sotheby’s auction that brought in a grand total of $31.2 million. The jewels were the property of the countess Albina Boisrouvray, who inherited them from her parents, the late Count and Countess Guy du Boisrouvray.
Interestingly, the most expensive piece from the sale was one that came up earlier in this list: the 32.08-carat Burmese ruby and diamond ring from Chaumet that sold at Safra’s 2012 charity auction for $6.7 million. In ’89 it was a touch more affordable, going for only $4.62 million.
Princess Salimah Aga Khan
Following her divorce from husband Prince Karim Aga Khan, Princess Salimah Aga Khan’s jewels went to auction in 1995 and brought in $27,682,601. The princess, a former model, had a collection full of items she had commissioned from top international jewelry houses like Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Boucheron.
Of the more than 250 pieces sold in the auction, the top money-getter was the “Begum Blue,” a 13.78-carat deep-blue heart-shaped diamond set in a diamond necklace. Valued at $7 million, the necklace was purchased by King Laurence Graff for just shy of $7.8 million.
Ellen Barkin
Emmy and Tony-winning actress Ellen Rona Barkin went through a divorce with billionaire husband Ronald Owen Perlman in 2006. Following her divorce with the man who in 2012 was ranked as the 26th richest American, Barkin sold off the opulent jewels she acquired during the duo’s six-year marriage. More than 100 pieces were sold by Christie’s New York for a total of $20,369,200.
Seventeen of the pieces in her collection were from JAR, including a 22.76-carat elongated oval-cut diamond “thread” ring that was bought for $1.8 million and change.
Princess Margaret
Four years after her death in 2002, the Countess of Snowdon’s lifetime collection of jewelry wassold at Christie’s Geneva for $17,659,731. Princess Margaret was the only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II and the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
Highlights of the sale included Queen Mary’s Diamond Riviere, which was one of the princess’ favorite pieces. The necklace was bought for $1,828,224, despite being estimated to be worth a maximum of just $552,000. Another expensive piece that blew away its estimated value was the “Poltimore Tiara,” which went for $1,704,576, or around four times as much as its high estimate.
Jayne Wrightsman
Jayne and her late husband Charles B. Wrightsman are famed for amassing the finest private collection of decorative arts of the French Ancien Régime, many pieces of which the pair donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of Jayne Wrightsman’s other major collections, her jewelry, sold at Sotheby’s New York in 2012 to the tune of $15,541,188.
Well exceeding its high estimate of $9 million, the New York socialite’s collection featured exquisite items from fine jewelers like JAR, Cartier, Bulgari and Suzanne Belperron. The centerpiece was a natural pearl and diamond corsage ornament that went for more than two million.
Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis
Known as the “Punk Princess” and “Princess TNT, the dynamite socialite,” Princess Gloria is perhaps best known for her wild hair and wardrobe. It was her 1992 auction of jewels that raked in $13.7 million that landed her on this list, however. The princess was forced to sell off much of her jewel collection in that auction after her husband died, and the proceeds from it where needed to save the family fortune from debt and inheritance taxes.
Among the most noteworthy and rare pieces she did sell was a pearl and diamond tiara that was commissioned by Napoleon III for his bride, Empress Eugenie, in 1853. The tiara went for $649,537 to Paris’ Louvre Museum.
Image Credit: Jewels Du Jour