[Caitlin]

Here is a temporary picture. If requested, I can sitch to another one of the pearl or clasp

Designed with versatility in mind, the necklace was originally made up of five strands of pearls, which allowed its owner to change the combination and style of the jewellery. Anna gave these pearls to her daughter Delphine, but on her untimely death at the age of 44, the pearls reverted back to Anna. In 1968, Delphine's daughter Yvonne acquired the pearls from Anna and subsequently divided the strands amongst her friends and heirs. Three of these family members have decided to reunite their individual natural pearl strands to sell as one necklace at Bonhams' auction.

Ever since 1920, when Horace Dodge first bought the pearls from Cartier there has been much speculation over the necklace's early provenance. A Cartier sales invoice to Horace E. Dodge, Esq, dated 24 May 1920, states that the "five row pearl necklace, consisting of three hundred and eighty-nine (389) pearls weighing forty-three hundred and five (4305) grains" was accompanied by an "enamel clasp representing Catherine, Empress of Russia" and "two (2) diamond alternate clasps". Many newspaper articles written in the early 1920s and since then, including those from The New York Times and Detroit Times, have suggested that the pearls once belonged to Catherine the Great and furthermore, the heirs of Anna Thomson Dodge maintain that Horace bought the pearls from Cartier on that basis.

"I fear the truth will always be shrouded in mystery," says Bonhams'
International Director of Jewellery Matthew Girling.

Whilst proof of a direct connection between the pearls and the Empress currently remains inconclusive - despite research by Bonhams to uncover the necklace's early provenance - it is a fact that in the early 1900s jewellery from Russian aristocrats found its way onto the open market. Russian émigrés, fleeing the Revolution, who had lost their land and fortune and whose funds were quickly exhausted in foreign countries, had no other means to subsist than by selling the family jewels their wives were able to carry with them in their flight. Russian royal jewels found new owners in the wives of wealthy industrialists - many of them American.

Throughout history pearls have always been considered precious. The Romans invaded Britain for them and hundreds of years later Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World to bring the gems back for the Spanish Treasury.
They have been found in Egyptian tombs and Chinese burial grounds and they've been loved and worn by the Maharajas of India, Catherine the Great, Napoleon, and Queen Victoria, and Coco Chanel.

"Pearls are never out of fashion. Current famous women wearing them include Sarah Jessica Parker, Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Keira Knightley and Katherine Heigl," adds Bonhams' Matthew Girling.

During the coming months, the magnificent pearls of Anna Thomson Dodge will go on view at Bonhams in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dubai and London prior to them being sold in New York on 16 December 2008.