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Originally Posted by knotty panda
If these pearls were part of the Crown Jewels, I'm surprised they let riff-raff like the Duchess make off with them.
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Hi Knotty,
I wouldn't exactly brand the Duchess of Windsor as "riff-raff". Certainly she wasn't liked by the royal family, particularly the late Queen Mother, but she took good care of her David and he was the one that was doing most of the jewel procuring for her. Most all of her jewels were gifts purchased by her devoted husband. After her death, the jewellery collection was auctioned off and the proceeds donated to the Pasteur Institue as a gift to the French government(who treated the couple very well).
The Duchess did not make off with any jewels either. If she did have anything super important from the British royal collection, it would have been given back. After the death of the Duke, the Duchess was on passable turms with her husband's family. She returned many of the Duke's personal items to them. Much more than she needed to. She also gave away some jewels from her collection to Princess Michael
which included the Cartier "Cherries" brooch, huge cabochon emerald earrings and other pieces.
I think the paragraphs below tell the history of either one or the OTHER natural pearl strands the Duchess of Windsor was known to wear:
"In 1953, before Queen Mary's death, she made a gift of a natural pearl necklace to her son David. She obviously knew he would give it to Wallis."
The necklace was a choker made of 28 very large natural pearls with an oval diamond clasp. It sold in 1987(Sotheby's) for $733,333."
Personally, I doubt that Queen Mary, when giving the natural pearl strand to her son, said to herself, "Here, let me give this incredibly lovely and rare royal jewel to that "riff-raff" of a woman David is married to!". She meant to give Wallis the necklace as a gesture of goodwill, however little of it she had.
Slraep