#mauboussin

L'Officiel Octobre 1950

Jacques Fath Haute Couture Collection Fall/Winter 1950-51. Sylvie Hirsch wears a dress made of a black Buche fabric and enriched with a Mauboussin set. The gold necklace maintains a studded pattern of emeralds, sapphires and brilliants. The earrings are made of a gold lattice centered by a brilliant.

Jacques Fath Collection Haute Couture Automne/Hiver 1950-51. Sylvie Hirsch porte une robe réalisée dans un tissu noir de Buche et enrichi d'une parure de Mauboussin. Le collier d'or maintient un motif clouté d'émeraudes, de saphirs et de brillants. Les boucles d'oreilles sont faites d'un treillis d'or centré par un brillant.

The Golconda Blue

The largest Fancy Vivid Blue Diamond is weighing an extraordinary 23.24 carats.

This exceptional pear-shaped Golconda diamond boasts a remarkable provenance rooted in Indian Royalty. Yeshwant Rao Holkar, the Maharaja of Indore and a member of the Holkar dynasty, was known—alongside his wife—for a lifestyle defined by elegance and cosmopolitan sophistication in the 1920s and ’30s.

A Knight of the Order of the Indian Empire, the Maharaja spent much of his time abroad, cultivating a strong affinity for Western art, design, and jewellery.

In 1913, his father acquired the famed Indore Pear diamonds from Chaumet, marking the beginning of a long-standing relationship with the historic Parisian Maison. In 1923, during another visit to Chaumet, he commissioned a diamond bracelet set with his own 23-carat pear-shaped Golconda blue diamond.

Drawn to the firm’s avant-garde flare, Yeshwant Rao Holkar appointed Mauboussin as his official jeweler in 1933. Thereafter, Mauboussin reimagined much of the Maharaja’s collection and created the exceptional necklace including the Golconda Blue and the Indore Pears, worn by the Maharani of Indore memorialized in a portrait by Bernard Boutet de Monvel.

Yeshwant Rao Holkar also collaborated with other iconic jewelers, including Harry Winston. In 1946, Mr. Winston purchased the Indore Pears from the Maharaja, and the following year, in January 1947, he acquired this 23-carat blue diamond. Winston later set it in a brooch alongside a matching 23-carat white diamond, which he sold to the Maharaja of Baroda. The brooch was subsequently reacquired by Mr. Winston and resold as a newly designed jewel to its current owner.

Now, over a century later, this legendary blue diamond set as a striking contemporary ring by the celebrated Parisian designer JAR.

(Sanyogitabai Devi of Indore (1914-1937), H.H. The Maharani of Indore, wearing the Golconda Blue mounted in an Art Deco Mauboussin  sautoir, Portrait by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1881-1949).)

Carved Emerald, Ruby, Diamond and Platinum Clips by Mauboussin, French, Circa 1925

Photo Courtesy: Sandra Cronan

Two models wearing crepe dresses by Lucien Lelong and Mauboussin jewels.

Photographer: Horst P. Horst