Property of a Noblewoman (19 page)

Gilles and Phillip took their places at the back of the room to watch the bidding, and after an announcement of one correction in the catalog and two lots that had been withdrawn, the auction began on time. Marie-Antoinette’s historical items were scheduled for later in the sale, to create anticipation, but the opening bids were strong. The first three items went for three times the estimate, which wasn’t uncommon on an important sale with a high degree of interest. And half an hour later, an antique diamond necklace went for ten times the high estimate, and caused a ripple in the room, after two clients on the phone waged a bidding war against each other, with excellent results both for the seller and for Christie’s. The hammer price was just under a million dollars. Gilles and Phillip exchanged a glance of satisfaction. It was going to be a great sale.

And when Marie-Antoinette’s pieces finally came up, well into the sale, they went for roughly what the house had expected. Two were purchased by private collectors, as Gilles whispered to Phillip, five others were purchased by museums, and the best piece had been saved for last, an elegant diamond tiara she was said to have worn at court as a young girl when she was first queen. It sold for two and a half million euros, just over three million dollars, and was sold to the Tate Gallery in London. And the bidding ended with a surprise, which Gilles was familiar with, and Phillip had heard about but had never actually seen happen.

The instant the hammer fell, a small bearded man in a brown suit stood up in the third row and declared in a firm voice that carried throughout the room, “I claim this item for the museums of France, by the power vested in me by the government.” There was dead silence in the room, as the uninitiated tried to figure out what had just happened. But Phillip already knew the procedure. When an item was historically important, a government representative was sent to the sale, waited for the bidding to end and the hammer to fall, to establish its current market value, and then claimed it for the government of France, and the successful bidder would lose the item, in this case to the Louvre. It was always a source of great disappointment to a successful bidder to lose the desired lot at the last minute, but it was a risk, and Christie’s had warned their important clients of the possibility before the sale. The government representative had let the other items go to public sale, but not the tiara. A portrait of the young queen wearing it was already in the Louvre, of which Christie’s had been aware. The auction continued after that, and it added even more excitement and drama in the room. Each of the lots sold, some at staggering prices, and when it was all over at ten o’clock, people claimed their items, or made arrangements to have them sent. Many of the lots had been purchased by well-known jewelers in London and New York. And one of the highest bids had been made by a private buyer in Hong Kong. It was one of those nights when Phillip had no regrets about not being in the art department. It had been a terrific sale, and a thrill to be part of it, particularly when the tiara was claimed by the museums of France, although neither he nor Gilles was surprised.

“Good one,” he said to Gilles when they left the auction room after it cleared. It had been one of the most successful sales they’d had in years, although the lots had been consigned by many people, not just one famous person, whose whole collection was sold, such as the Elizabeth Taylor sale. Their single-owner sales, particularly of famous people, were usually the more important ones. But sometimes those from a variety of provenances did equally well, as this one had.

Phillip was still revved up about it when he got back to the hotel, and for lack of someone else to tell, he called his mother about it, but she was out. She was so busy with the many things she did and was interested in, the art classes she still took, boards she served on, and friends she went out with, that she was hard to get hold of at times. He thought of trying to reach Jane after he left his mother a message on her voicemail, but he felt a little foolish calling Jane about it. He didn’t know her that well, and she would either be at work, or on her way home by then, so he let it go.

The next day was exciting for him. After helping Gilles with some of the paperwork and arrangements resulting from the auction the night before, which were considerable, he went to his appointment at Cartier at eleven, on the rue de la Paix, and met with the head of the archives department. He was waiting for Phillip with a folder on his desk. He had the inventory of items Phillip had sent him, and went down the list chronologically, rather than in the order Phillip had listed them, having no idea when the pieces were created. He was an older man, who was intensely knowledgeable about the pieces Cartier had made for important clients, what period of their work they represented, how they differed from other pieces they had designed, and whatever was unusual about them, and he loved sharing the information, and showing their working drawings to those who were interested. He was deeply proud of their work. He had worked for Cartier for thirty years.

He explained to Phillip that the thirty-carat emerald-cut – meaning rectangular (the style of cut referred to any color stone, not just an emerald, which Phillip knew of course after two years in the jewelry department at Christie’s, although he hadn’t known it before) – emerald ring with triangular emerald trillions of four carats each on either side, was the first piece the Conte di San Pignelli had commissioned from them. And the notes on the exquisite and immaculately neat working drawings indicated that it was a wedding present for his bride. He ordered it in late 1942, and the ring took six months to complete. It was a magnificent piece, Phillip knew from having seen it in New York. Umberto had bought the pearl and diamond choker for her a year later, for her birthday, and the measurements of Marguerite’s neck were duly noted on the worksheets.

“She had a very long, thin, aristocratic neck, like a swan,” the archivist from Cartier said with a smile. They had a photograph in the file of her wearing the choker sometime later, which Phillip wanted to reproduce for the catalog with their permission, with a credit to Cartier’s archives listed beneath it. Marguerite was smiling in the photograph, wearing a white satin evening gown, and looked exquisite on her husband’s arm. “We also sold him the very important pearl necklace on your list, which was an item we apparently had in the store, and we did not make it for her. They were natural pearls, which are even rarer now.” Phillip remembered it perfectly from the inventory. The pearls in the long strand were of an unusual size, and a smooth creamy color, unblemished and flawless. “We sold that to the count a year after the choker, at almost the same time, so it must have been a birthday gift as well.”

There was a very handsome diamond brooch that was noted as an anniversary gift after the war. And one of their famous tiger bracelets in white diamonds and onyx that was also for an anniversary. The twenty-five-carat oval “pigeon’s blood” Burmese ruby ring was for their fifth anniversary and had taken a year to make, according to the notes in the file. “Probably to find the stone, which was unusually large for a Burmese ruby of that color.” The forty-carat white diamond emerald-cut ring had been his tenth anniversary gift to her, and he had purchased the large yellow diamond ring for her to mark their twentieth anniversary, in 1962, three years before he died.

“She had some of our best, most memorable pieces. We wonder where they are sometimes, and then they surface and we become aware of them when heirs put them up for auction, or in situations like this one. I imagine it will make a very handsome sale,” the Cartier archivist said. “Would you like me to send you a copy of our files: the drawings and the occasions?” It was precisely what Phillip wanted, and he had struck gold at Cartier. The information they provided would give even greater meaning and value to the pieces, and be valuable to the people who bought them, whether jewelers for resale, or privates who would want to know everything about their origins, and who had owned them.

“The count was a very generous man,” Phillip commented before he left.

“He must have loved her very much,” the man from Cartier said discreetly. He himself was enamored with the history of their pieces and had dedicated most of his career to their archives, and adding information about the new creations. It was his life’s work.

Phillip thanked him for his time and the excellent research, told him where to email the drawings for the catalog, and then they shook hands and said good-bye and he left. Phillip stopped for lunch at a sidewalk café, thinking about what he’d learned at Cartier, and then went to Van Cleef and Arpels, even though the head of the archives department was away. His visit there was briefer but also instructive. The number-two person in the department was able to tell him that the invisibly set sapphire necklace and earrings, in a typical style from the 1940s, had been a birthday gift, a simple diamond pin had been a Christmas gift, and a sapphire ring and bracelet had been a Christmas gift as well. The stones in the Van Cleef pieces weren’t as large, but the settings were remarkable, the quality exceptional, and the pieces really lovely.

He hadn’t contacted Boucheron about some of Marguerite’s less important pieces. Umberto seemed to have a strong preference for Van Cleef and Cartier. And she had jewelry from a few other Paris jewelers that no longer existed.

Christie’s own in-house jewelry experts had determined that Marguerite’s small diamond tiara was an antique, and thus impossible to trace. They were certain it was French, but said it might have been purchased in London. The remainder of her jewelry had been made in Italy, notably two pieces by Bulgari, whom Phillip hadn’t had time to contact yet. But his trip to Paris had been fruitful. He had a wealth of information about Marguerite’s jewelry now, even their original prices, which bore little relation to their value now. The prices had been astronomical when they were purchased, but more than seventy years later, the price of jewelry and gemstones had multiplied exponentially. And stones of the caliber of her jewelry were almost impossible to find in the modern world.

Phillip went back to the Christie’s office after his appointment at Van Cleef, and he had nothing more to do. He had been sent to the Paris sale as an observer and to lend a hand, but his work was over, and the Paris office could manage the rest. He was taking the Eurostar to London that night, mostly to show his face and check in at their London office, as long as he was in Paris anyway. And he always liked going to London, and seeing his friends in the art department. He said good-bye to Gilles, who wished him luck with the May sale.

He stayed at Claridge’s in London, and took a walk down New Bond Street, where he admired the wares of Graff and the other important jewelers. They sold a lot of Graff pieces at auction, with flawless stones and beautiful designs, which were known to go for high prices, and Laurence Graff purchased stones from them as well to incorporate in his designs. He was known to buy incredibly valuable stones in rare colors, like pink and blue diamonds, in the largest sizes he could find. He had become the modern-day Harry Winston, with remarkable pieces at extraordinary prices. Phillip enjoyed looking in Graff’s windows on his walk. Despite Phillip’s preference for art over jewelry, Graff’s pieces were best in show, and he admired him for that.

And on the way back to the hotel, he looked into several art galleries as well. And the next morning, he went to the Christie’s office, and met with his British counterparts there, and discussed their upcoming sales. It was nice to see them and have a serious conversation, and not just exchange impersonal emails with them, and he advised them in greater detail about the May sale in New York. They were interested in hearing about the di San Pignelli estate, how it had come to them through the surrogate’s court, and his recent discoveries about the pieces at Cartier and Van Cleef. And when he went to pack late that afternoon, he decided on the spur of the moment to go to Rome after all, to complete his research, and had the concierge book him a flight at nine
P.M.
It was an easy hop from London, and they reserved a room for him at the Hassler. He wasn’t planning to stay long, he only wanted to see the jewelers there. There were only one or two he planned to visit the next day.

After a brief delay at Heathrow, he arrived at the hotel in Rome just after midnight. His room was not large, but comfortable with a small balcony and decorated in lush yellow satin and antiques and had a beautiful view of Rome. The city was alive and bustling at that hour, with all the chaos and electricity he loved about it, and people in the streets. He poured himself a short brandy, and stood drinking it on the terrace, admiring the view under a full moon. As beautiful as Paris was, he always thought that Rome was the most romantic city in the world. And it depressed him a little to be standing there alone. It made him think that his mother was right, and he should be making more of an effort to meet someone, and do more than spend every weekend working on his boat. It would have been nice to have company in Rome with him, although he had come for business.

He slept soundly after the brandy, on a canopied bed, and woke up at eight the next morning. He had a strong Italian espresso, and was at Bulgari on Via Condotti when they opened at ten o’clock. Both the emerald and diamond bracelet and the lacy diamond bracelet in Marguerite’s safe deposit box were from there, but with regret they told him that they no longer had records that went back that far. Many of their older records were destroyed in the war. It had been a long shot coming to see them, and a good excuse to go to Rome as long as he was in Europe for the Paris sale. He wandered along the Via Condotti after that, and stopped in at Prada to buy a shirt, and by one o’clock, when many of the stores closed for lunch, he had finished his business there.

He went to a trattoria for a plate of pasta and a glass of wine, and as he watched the lively scene around him, another thought came to mind. He really didn’t need it as research for the catalog, but he suddenly felt an irresistible pull to go to Naples, to see the château the Pignellis had lived in there. There was a Roman address on some of her papers too, and he had the cab driver pass it on the way back to the hotel. It was a handsome but innocuous building, where they must have had a Roman pied-à-terre. But her main address for thirty-two years had been in Naples, which he assumed had been the count’s principal residence and family seat. He was aching to see it now. He didn’t have a heavy schedule when he went back to New York, and was tempted to add one more day to his trip for the detour to Naples, and inquired about flights when he got back to the hotel at two-thirty. The concierge told him there was one from Fiumicino Airport to Naples at six o’clock, which he could easily catch, and they offered to book a room for him at the Grand Hotel Vesuvio, which they assured him was very agreeable. And feeling as though he were taking a leap into space, he asked them to make the reservations for him for both hotel and flight.