The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Book Review: RUBY (2017)

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As our celebration of July’s birthstone continues, I’ve got a review of the latest addition to my personal royal jewelry library: Joanna Hardy’s Ruby: The King of Gems.

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The coffee-table sized book is luxurious, with a cover that feels silky and decadent, and legitimately massive, weighing in at a whopping seven pounds! The text features 368 pages of beautifully printed text and images, including super close-up views of individual rubies, showcasing their unique striations and inclusions.

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The text showcases Hardy’s expertise as a historian of gems and jewelry, with sections ranging from the ancient use of rubies (and spinels) to contemporary designs featuring the gemstone. There’s also a lot of royal ruby content here, including familiar sets like the Mellerio Ruby Parure that belongs to the Dutch royal family and the ruby suite worn by Queen Sofia of Spain. Above, you’ll see that ruby jewels belonging to French royals past are also included.

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The text is informative and engaging, and the photography is quite good, ranging from full-color portraits of collectors wearing their ruby pieces to beautiful portraits of the jewels alone. Sketches and other archival images are included, too.

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If you’re a ruby lover, or if you’re just looking for a new bejeweled coffee table book to add to your interior decor, I’d highly recommend Ruby. (Hardy also has another book devoted to emeralds that’s on my to-buy list.) Amazon is currently selling it for more than 50% off the list price, if you’re a buyer there, but as it’s been on shelves for over a year, used copies are probably beginning to pop up on the market as well.

Note: Some links on this website are Amazon affiliate links. I put all money that I receive from these affiliate links back into materials for review on the site (including the book discussed in this post), so if you want to read more reviews, please consider purchasing items through the affiliate links in this post and throughout the site. Thanks, everybody!

Princess Margaret’s Ruby and Diamond Flower Brooch

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July is the month for rubies, and one of the biggest royal ruby collectors of all was Princess Margaret. Today, we’ve got a look at one of her favorite pieces featuring the bright red gem: her Ruby and Diamond Flower Brooch.

Christie’s

The brooch was made in London in 1948 by Cartier. Christie’s lot notes from a later auction describe the piece as having “curved openwork old and single-cut diamond petals and stem” and an “oval ruby stamen and leaf decoration.” According to the auction notes, the piece was originally made as a clip brooch, but was later converted to a “pin-fitting” brooch. The original Cartier signature was lost when the clip was removed, but the brooch was securely housed in its original Cartier red leather box.

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Margaret wore the brooch essentially for her entire adult life. Here, she’s wearing it with pearls at the Epsom Derby in May 1955.

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While she often wore the flower brooch for daytime occasions, she sometimes used it as an evening jewel as well. Here, at the London premiere of Doctor Zhivago in April 1966, she wore it with several other ruby and diamond pieces, including her girandole earrings, two bracelets, and her ruby and diamond engagement ring.

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She paired the brooch and the girandole earrings again in November 1972 for the Royal European Preview of the musical Applause in London.

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This is probably my favorite photograph of Margaret wearing the brooch, however. (The rubies! The shades! The HAT!) This was taken in July 1991, when she was on a visit to Kew Gardens in London. Fifteen years later, when jewels from Margaret’s estate were sold at Christie’s, the brooch was estimated to fetch between 10,000 and 15,000 pounds. When the hammer fell, it sold for much, much more — 108,000 pounds, to be exact.