The Arcots
The Hanoverian rulers of Great Britain amassed a large
collection of personal jewelry and Queen Charlotte, the consort of King George
III, was surely no exception. She received many jewels, the most notable being
the diamonds she was given by the Nawab of Arcot. These included five
brilliants, the largest of which was a 38.6-carat oval-shaped stone and was
later set in a necklace with the two smallest stones.
Arcot, a town near Madras, became famous for its
capture and defense by Clive in 1751 during the war between the rival claimants
to the throne of the Carnatic. In 1801 it passed into British hands following
the resignation of the government of Nawab Azim-Ud-Daula, who had given the
diamonds to Queen Charlotte in 1777.
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The Queen died in 1818
and under the terms of her will the Arcots were ordered to be sold to Rundell
& Bridge who in 1804 had been appointed jewelers and silversmiths to the
Crown by King George III. The claus about her "Personals" read:
"...of chief value being the jewels. First those
which the King bought for £50,000 and gave to me. Secondly those presented to
me by the Nawab of Arcot to my four remaining daughters, or to the survivors or
survivor in case they or any of them should die before me, and I direct that
these jewels should be sold and that the produce...shall be divided among them,
my said remaining daughters or their survivors, share and share alike."
However, a delay resulted in the implementing of the
Queen's will. This was the result of the attitude taken by her eldest son,
George IV, who upon the death of his father George III in 1820, decided that
the whole of his father's property should pass to himself, not upon the Crown.
Consequently he appropriated the money and the jewels and acted in a similar
manner with regards to his mother's jewelry. The Arcots were set in a crown for
George IV and later in the crown of Queen Adelaide, the consort of his
successor, William IV.
The terms of Queen Charlotte's will concerning the pieces
of jewelry were thus not executed until many years after she died. King George
IV died on June 26, 1830. John Bridge of Rundell & Bridge died in 1834; the
firm was sold and the executors ordered the sale of the Arcots together with
the round brilliant with may have been the Hastings Diamond and which had also
been set in the crown made for George IV. The historic sale took place in
London at Willis's Room in St. James on July 20th, 1837. The first Marquess of
Westminster bought the Arcots for £10,000 as part of a birthday present for
his wife. He also bought the round brilliant and the Nassak Diamond.
The Westminster Tiara. The large round center diamond was
thought to be the Hastings Diamond. The Arcots are on either side.
The Arcots and the other diamonds remained in the
possession of the Grosvenor family for many years. In 1930 the Parisian jeweler
Lacloche mounted the Arcots in the Westminster Tiara, a bandeau style piece,
together with the round brilliant and no less than 1421 smaller smaller
diamonds. The tiara was pieced to form a design of pavè-set scrolls with
arcading, and with clusters of marquise-shaped diamonds between the sections,
tapering slightly at the sides, with baguette diamond banding framing the large
center stone and with diamond baguettes dispersed singly throughout the tiara.
In her memoirs, Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, third wife of the second Duke
of Westminster, wrote about the Arcots, "fixed by themselves on the
safety-pin they looked extremely bogus, so that a friend who saw me that
evening remarked, 'What on earth does Loelia think she's doing, pinning those
two lumps of glass on herself?'"
The Van Cleef & Arpels necklace, with
the Arcot I at the bottom.
In June of 1959 the third Duke of Westminster sold the
Westminster Tiara to help meet the cost of heavy death-duties. Harry Winston
paid £110,000 for it at auction - then a world record price for a piece of
jewelry. Mr. Winston had the two Arcots recut in order to obtain greater
clarity and brilliance, the larger to 30.99 metric carats and the smaller to
18.85 metric carats. Each was remounted in a ring and sold to American clients
in 1959 and 1960 respectively. The larger of the two, Arcot I, was then set as
the pendant to a necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels and was later sold at
auction at Christie's in Geneva in November of 1993 when it was bought by Sheik
Ahmed Hassan Fitaihi, the Saudi Arabian dealer.
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The Arcots Diamond
