Poise and Carats
I keep going back to Cartier: The Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia next door, and, within the exhibition, to Princess Marie Louise ’s diamond, pearl and sapphire Indian tiara (1923), surely one of the most superb head ornaments ever conceived. Remodelled for the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937, Louie bequeathed the tiara to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester from whom it passed to the present Duke and Duchess, who with extraordinary generosity agreed to lend it. For sheer gob-smacking splendour, though, it’s hard to surpass the Maharajah of Patiala’s immense, almost waist-length 1928 five-strand coronation necklace with its vast stones. The other thing I keep going back to is the huge, 1921 478-carat sapphire pendant that once dangled at the end of Queen Marie of Rumania’s sautoir , a wholly dazzling stone the depth of whose colour recalls deep Melanesian reef water just before sunset. It lifts the s...