FD Gallery

FD Gallery FD Gallery is located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, specializing in one-of-a-kind contemporary and estate jewelry.
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Natural multicolored and conch pearl necklace, composed of two graduated strands of natural saltwater pearls in shades o...
09/06/2026

Natural multicolored and conch pearl necklace, composed of two graduated strands of natural saltwater pearls in shades of cream, champagne, lavender and soft golden brown, accented by rare natural pink conch pearls, completed by an Art Deco diamond and baguette‑cut clasp.

This necklace showcases the subtle iridescence of natural pearls against the smooth, matte glow of conch pearls, creating a sophisticated play of color and texture at the neck.

09/06/2026

During the 1950s, the Boivin atelier was led by Jeanne Boivin, who, with designers such as Juliette Moutard and Germaine Boivin, created pieces that often departed from the mainstream, favoring bold forms and a naturalistic feel over ornamentation. Many necklaces were made on custom order, and all-diamond examples were exceptionally rare compared to gold or multi-gem necklaces, with Boivin’s style emphasizing the form and arrangement of diamonds rather than sheer size or weight.

From a Romanov Grand Duchess to a Tangier palace. The emeralds in this fringe tiara have one of jewelry history’s great ...
09/05/2026

From a Romanov Grand Duchess to a Tangier palace.
The emeralds in this fringe tiara have one of jewelry history’s great odysseys. They began in the collection of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich - a wedding gift from Tsar Alexander II. After her death in exile in 1920, her son Grand Duke Boris sold the stones to Cartier, who reset them for American heiress Edith Rockefeller McCormick. When McCormick died in 1932, the emeralds returned once again to Cartier.

Enter Barbara Hutton. The Woolworth heiress bought the suite in 1936, first wearing the stones as a ring, necklace and earrings, before commissioning Cartier’s Lucien Lachassagne in 1947 to remount them into this dramatic fringe tiara - convertible into a necklace. Cecil Beaton immortalized her wearing it at Sidi Hosni, her palace in Tangier, paired with the 40 carat Pasha diamond.

By the mid 1960s, funding another divorce, Hutton sold the emeralds to Van Cleef & Arpels, who broke up the suite and sold the stones individually - scattering a piece of Romanov history across private hands. Reportedly, the pair of earrings from the suite has since found its way into the Peltz family collection - a fitting next chapter for jewels that have already outlived an empire, and three heiresses.

09/04/2026

In 1436, a simple inventory note revealed the identity of a remarkable jewel: a sapphire ring once belonging to Duke Ernest the Iron. This elegant piece of jewelry is more than just a precious ornament—it is the oldest object in the medieval treasures of the House of Habsburg that can be unequivocally attributed to a specific individual.

Housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, its survival bridges history, connecting us directly to a powerful ruler whose descendants would go on to shape European politics for centuries. While countless treasures of the Middle Ages remain anonymous, this sapphire ring carries with it a name, a lineage, and a story that highlights the continuity of dynastic heritage.

As such, it is both a personal relic of Duke Ernest and a symbolic artifact of Habsburg legacy, making it an extraordinary link between medieval nobility and enduring imperial tradition.

Comprising a magnificent diamond and emerald diadem, emerald necklace, earrings and brooch, this parure showcases both t...
09/03/2026

Comprising a magnificent diamond and emerald diadem, emerald necklace, earrings and brooch, this parure showcases both the exquisite workmanship of nineteenth century goldsmiths, and Prince Albert’s own flair for design.

Albert was fascinated by jewelry and personally designed this dazzling headpiece for his wife. Created by the Queen’s Jeweler Joseph Kitching, the tiara is set with cushion-shaped diamonds and step-cut emeralds, and surmounted by a graduated row of 19 inverted pear-shaped emeralds, the largest of which weighs over 15 carats.

As a testament to Albert’s own creative talents, the pieces he designed for Victoria now constitute the only known examples of a tiara design by a consort for his Queen. Victoria, clearly delighted with the gift, wrote in her journal of her husband’s ‘wonderful taste’, and her delight at wearing this ‘lovely Diadem of diamonds and emeralds designed by my beloved Albert’.

Presented to Victoria in 1845, the tiara provided both the centrepiece and finishing touch to an existing emerald suite. It was created to complement a necklace formed of nine oval emerald clusters, each set within a border of cushion-shaped diamonds, its accompanying pendant earrings and an emerald and diamond brooch, all of which were gifts from Albert.

Victoria would select these gems for Franz Xavier Winterhalter’s intimate 1846 painting of the royal family, for her son Prince Alfred’s christening and again for a striking Winterhalter portrait of 1859, which depicts the pieces in stunning detail.

The Delhi Durbar necklace and earrings, made by the royal jeweler Garrard & Co. in diamonds, emeralds, platinum and gold...
09/02/2026

The Delhi Durbar necklace and earrings, made by the royal jeweler Garrard & Co. in diamonds, emeralds, platinum and gold. The nine cabochon emeralds at the necklace’s heart have their own improbable origin story. They trace back to a charity lottery in Frankfurt in 1818, where Princess Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge - Queen Mary’s grandmother - won a box of roughly forty loose emeralds. The stones descended through the family until 1910, when Queen Mary’s brother, Prince Francis of Teck, died and left them to his mistress, the Countess of Kilmorey. To keep the “Cambridge emeralds” from leaving royal hands - and to avoid scandal - Mary personally bought them back from Lady Kilmorey.

With the emeralds reclaimed, Garrard set them alternating with large diamonds on a double platinum chain, suspending a detachable pendant carrying the 8.8-carat marquise-cut Cullinan VII - sliced from the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, still the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever unearthed, found in South Africa in 1905 and gifted to the Crown in 1907.

King George V paid for the whole parure himself, presenting it to Mary as a 44th-birthday gift ahead of their journey to India, where the couple were proclaimed Emperor and Empress of India at the Delhi Durbar of December 12, 1911. The suite passed to Queen Elizabeth II on Mary’s death in 1953 and became a fixture of her most formal jewel changes, most often paired with the Vladimir tiara.

Made around 1884 by the Russian court jeweler Bolin, this tiara was a wedding gift for Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovn...
09/01/2026

Made around 1884 by the Russian court jeweler Bolin, this tiara was a wedding gift for Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria who married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, fifth son of Tsar Alexander II. Its seven cabochon emeralds had belonged to Sergei’s mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, and were inherited by Sergei before being set into this kokoshnik style tiara.

Elizabeth became a nun after her husband’s assassination in 1905 and was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Some of her jewels — including this tiara — had already passed a decade earlier to her niece, Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, when she married into the Swedish royal family.

Having fled Russia and in need of funds, Marie Pavlovna sold the tiara in 1922 to King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, who bought it at the urging of his future mother-in-law, Queen Marie of Romania — herself a first cousin of Elizabeth’s — as a wedding gift for his bride, Princess Marie of Romania, known in the family as Mignon. Mignon wore it for her parents’ Romanian coronation that same year and throughout most of her reign as Queen of Yugoslavia, Her daughter-in-law, Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia, is pictured wearing it also.

When the Yugoslav monarchy fell, King Peter II — Mignon’s son — fled to the United States. In 1949 he left the tiara with Van Cleef & Arpels in New York as collateral for a $20,000 loan; a handwritten receipt valued it at $60,000 and authorized its sale for $70,000 if needed. Rather than sell it right away, the house simply displayed it in their store window. By 1953, Mignon had sold it to Van Cleef & Arpels outright.

The house then removed the historic Romanov emerald cabochons — resetting them into new jewelry to sell separately — and filled the empty settings with green paste in their place. It has stayed with Van Cleef & Arpels ever since, occasionally loaned for exhibitions and even for film: Isabella Rossellini wore it in 1998’s “The Impostors,” playing an exiled Balkan queen. In 2016, it was loaned to a real Serbian royal, Princess Elisabeth.

08/30/2026

Lady Cynthia Asquith, writing in her diaries, vividly described how Queen Mary wore her sumptuous jewels as an extension of her stately presence:

“She was literally stuck all over with diamonds, they blazed from her brow, her throat, her arms, her hands; and swayed and scintillated as she moved… But her dignity and her love for state and ceremony made them all seem right.”

08/29/2026

In 1911, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich commissioned Cartier to create a sapphire sautoir necklace for his wife, Grand Duchess Victoria Melita, granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The central 311 carat cabochon sapphire originally belonged to Cyril’s mother, the indomitable Grand Duchess Vladimir.

Victoria and Cyril’s marriage, following her divorce from Empress Alexandra’s brother Ernst of Hesse, had caused their exile from Russia. They were only allowed to return in 1910. Seven years later, the Russian Revolution forced the family to escape Russia in disguise, smuggling their jewels —including this necklace—inside their children’s dolls to avoid confiscation.

Facing financial distress while in exile, Victoria sold the necklace to her sister Queen Marie of Romania in 1921, whose jewels had been depleted by wartime losses. The necklace subsequently passed to Queen Marie’s daughter princess Elisabeth, who had a short tenure as a Queen consort of Greece and then returned to Romania, but was exiled during the communist takeover.in 1947.

This necklace is currently in a private collection.

RomanianRoyalFamily AnniversaryGift VladimirSapphires JewelryHistory

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