Jewels with History III: La Peregrina, the pearl of the Spanish queens (and Elizabeth Taylor)

In December 2011, a very special sale took place at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. Christie's auctioned off the impressive jewelry collection of Elizabeth Taylor , who had died nine months earlier in Los Angeles. The actress, a great lover of jewelry , had amassed a veritable treasure trove of jewels and precious stones in her 79 years of life, which sold for a total of an astronomical $137.2 million.

But among all the jewels Christie's auctioned off, there was one particularly beautiful and special pearl. An exceptionally fine pearl that had belonged to several queens, and which painters such as Velázquez , Goya , and Rubens had captured in some of their paintings. Mounted by Cartier in a platinum necklace, it was estimated that it could sell that afternoon for between 2 and 3 million dollars. It ultimately sold for 11.84 million dollars, a record. We are talking about the Peregrina.

This is one of the most perfect pearls in the world . It weighs 234 grams, is teardrop-shaped, and has an exceptional shine. It was discovered in the waters of the Pearl Archipelago, a group of around 39 islands and 100 islets in Panama, so named because of the large number of gems of this type it contained, sometime in the 16th century. They say it was so absolutely spectacular that the slave who pulled it out of the water was rewarded with his freedom , and its owner was awarded the position of chief constable of Panama. It has never been drilled and was first described in 1609, already under the name of Peregrina, in the Royal Chronicle of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega , who claimed that in 1579 the pearl in question was in Seville, in the hands of the merchant Pedro de Témez , who had the firm intention of offering it to the King of Spain to be purchased.

Most experts assume that the Peregrina arrived at the Spanish court between 1579 and 1580. The first queen to possess this exquisite pearl would have been Anne of Austria , the fourth (and last) wife of Philip II . “A pear-shaped pendant pearl of good color and good water, with a small gold pin on the end, enameled white, weighing 71 and a half carats. It was purchased by the Royal Council of the Indies from Don Diego Tebes for 9,000 ducats. It was appraised by Francisco Reynalte and Pedro Cerdeño , gold silversmiths and lapidaries to the King, our Lord, at 8,748 ducats. The Queen, our Lady, owns it,” states the royal inventory of that time.

However, Anne of Austria owned the Peregrina for a very short time. The sovereign died in 1580, aged just 31 and pregnant with her sixth child. From then on, the pearl was passed down from king to king, from generation to generation . And when the last ruler of the Habsburg dynasty, Charles II 'the Bewitched' , died in 1700 without issue, and the Bourbons began their reign in Spain , the new queens of that dynasty were also fascinated by that perfect pearl. Numerous court portraits show various queens wearing the Peregrina, although the most famous is undoubtedly The Family of Charles IV , painted by Goya in 1800, in which Queen Maria Luisa of Parma wears the Peregrina on her chest.

But then, in 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain and succeeded in placing his brother, Joseph Bonaparte , on the country's throne. French troops had been ordered to sweep away all the works of art that were of interest to the Napoleon Museum; in Madrid alone, it is estimated that they looted some 2,000 paintings. Joseph Bonaparte had not been on the throne for even a week when he ordered that all the Spanish crown jewels be handed over to his finance minister, the Count of Cabarrús . "And so it was, with a simple order from a foreign king, that Spain lost its crown jewels forever," recounts Ana Trigo , author of the highly recommended book Cursed Jewels (La Esfera de los Libros) “But Joseph Bonaparte didn't play fair. Although in his letters he assured his brother and Marshal Alexandre Berthier that he had handed over all of Spain's treasure, we know he made a 'small' exception: he kept at least one of the jewels for himself: the Peregrina .”

When Joseph Bonaparte left Spain in 1813, after the defeat of Napoleon's troops at the Battle of Vitoria, he did so accompanied by 2,000 carts loaded with works of art , gold and silver objects, and, of course, jewels. The caravan, however, was attacked and looted by British soldiers. But Joseph Bonaparte managed to prevent them from taking the Peregrina and kept it forever. Proof of this is that he stipulated in his will that, upon his death, the jewel would pass into the hands of his nephew , Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte , who was then 36 years old and coveted the throne of France. In order to finance the campaign that would end up making him Emperor of France in 1852, he decided to sell the pearl.

The Peregrina was acquired by James Hamilton , Duke of Abercorn, a prestigious British politician and nobleman, to present to his wife, Louisa Abercorn . For one hundred years, the pearl was owned by the Abercorns, but around 1914, it was sold to the English jeweler RG, Hennel & Sons.

“Recently uncovered documents have shown that the jewelers offered it to King Alfonso XIII of Spain that same year, thinking he might be interested in recovering it for the Spanish crown jewels. However, there was no agreement on the price , and the transaction never materialized,” Ana Trigo emphasizes, also pointing out that although Queen Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (Alfonso XIII's wife) was convinced she owned the Peregrina for several decades, this was not the case.

“The confusion seems to have occurred because, on the occasion of her wedding in 1906, Alfonso XIII gave her a diamond brooch, known as the Ansorena Brooch, from which hung a large teardrop-shaped pearl, and she always mistakenly thought it was the historic jewel,” Ana Trigo recounts in her book. Cursed Jewels .

The real Peregrina was bought by a private individual, the wealthy Judge Geary , who in turn sold it to the millionaire Henry Huntingdon in 1917. For several years, no news of the jewel was heard, until in 1969 the New York auction house Parke-Bernet announced its sale, to the astonishment of Victoria Eugenia de Battenberg, who was convinced that she owned the authentic Peregrina. Just in case, she sent her nephew Alfonso de Borbón to bid for the jewel.

The Peregrina went up for auction under lot number 129 and with a starting price of $4,000. It sold for $39,000 and it was not Alfonso de Borbón who won the auction, but rather the lawyer Aaron Frosch , who had bought the jewel on behalf of a mysterious client . It soon became known that the mysterious client was none other than the actor Richard Burton , who had acquired the pearl to give to his wife, the actress Elizabeth Taylor. And although Victoria Eugenia was furious and asked Luis Martínez de Irujo , husband of the Duchess of Alba , to call a press conference in which he assured them that the real Peregrina was in the possession of the former queen, numerous specialists concluded that the one acquired by Richard Burton was the original.

Elizabeth Taylor commissioned Cartier to set the Peregrina pearl in a necklace. The French firm mounted the pearl in a magnificent platinum necklace composed of a double row of 57 natural pearls , four cultured pearls, ten rubies, and a handful of diamonds.

Nine months after the actress's death in March 2011, that necklace and other jewels belonging to the star of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof were auctioned. Lot number 12, belonging to the Peregrina, sold for $11.84 million. However, the identity of the person who purchased it was not revealed; to this day, they remain completely anonymous . No one knows if the pearl is still mounted on the Cartier necklace or if it has been set in another piece of jewelry. No one has seen the Peregrina in public again, nor has anything been heard from her since.