Opal Tiara Worn at Queen Elizabeth II's 1953 Coronation Heads to Auction
A Cartier tiara set with black opals and diamonds, worn at Queen Elizabeth II's 1953 coronation, is going up for sale at Sotheby's in Geneva. The piece is one of the lead lots in the auction house's Royal and Noble Jewels sale, meaning it is among the most prominent items in the catalog.
Cartier, the Paris jeweler, made the Art Deco piece in 1937 for Mary Cavendish, who later became the Duchess of Devonshire. Art Deco is a bold, geometric style popular in the 1920s and 1930s. The opals were a gift to Mary and her husband, then the Marquess of Hartington, a courtesy title given to the heir of a duke. They received the stones during a government tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1936 and 1937.
The piece is made of five detachable brooches. Each one is centered on an oval black opal surrounded by diamonds. Worn together, they form a tiara. They can also be separated and worn as a necklace or as a corsage ornament, a pin worn on a dress or coat.
At the 1953 coronation, Mary served as Mistress of the Robes, the senior woman in the queen's household. She wore the opals as a necklace with the Devonshire diamond tiara, a separate family heirloom. The ceremony made the opals part of one of the most widely watched events of the century, when millions of viewers, many of them in the United States, saw it on television for the first time.
Sotheby's estimates the tiara will sell for 780,000 to 1,100,000 Swiss francs, or about $950,000 to $1.4 million. The auction house's lot page lists a current bid of 550,000 Swiss francs. The live auction begins on November 11 at 4:00 p.m. GMT, which is 11:00 a.m. Eastern time in New York.
The opals have also appeared more recently on the red carpet. Director Emerald Fennell wore a Cartier opal necklace to the London premiere of her film Wuthering Heights. According to WWD, that necklace is made of black opal, diamonds and platinum.
The sale will settle who owns the piece next. Until then, the tiara remains a link between a 1930s tour, a 1953 crowning and a modern film premiere.
