Elizabeth Taylor's Bulgari Emerald & Diamond Necklace

Built around a hoop

The necklace is a graduated row of sixteen emeralds, some rectangular-cut and some square-cut, each set inside a circle of round diamonds. Between them sit diamond quatrefoils, four-lobed links built from round, marquise-cut and pear-shaped diamonds that grow larger toward the front. The whole is mounted in platinum, signed BVLGARI and dated 1962 in the auction catalog. It is short, 14 1/4 inches, so it sits high on the collarbone.

At the front is a hoop. The necklace was made to carry a pendant, and its pendant was already in Taylor's jewel box: the Bulgari brooch, a large Colombian emerald in a pear-shaped diamond frame, that Burton had given her when they became engaged in 1962. With the brooch hung from it, the two jewels read as one piece, and that is how Taylor was often photographed wearing them.

The necklace belonged to a larger Bulgari suite of matching emerald and diamond jewels. Besides the necklace and pendant-brooch, Taylor's set included a pair of ear pendants, a bracelet of thirteen emeralds dated 1963 and an emerald ring from about 1962.

Two continents in one necklace

A laboratory report dated May 23, 2011, examined all sixteen stones. It classified fifteen as Colombian and one as from Zimbabwe, from the Sandawana deposit. It rated their clarity enhancement, the oil or resin treatment that is routine for emeralds, as insignificant to faint.

The president of the laboratory that examined the stones, Christopher P. Smith, said the necklace and bracelet held 'a collection of very fine Muzo emeralds from Colombia, as well as a number of top-quality Sandawana emeralds from Zimbabwe.' In the early 1960s, he said, Sandawana produced some very fine emeralds, and the Taylor pieces show how well they hold up against top Muzo stones.

Smith's remark covered the necklace and the bracelet together. For the necklace alone, the laboratory report counts one Sandawana stone among the sixteen.

Liz, Dick and Via Condotti

Bulgari was founded in Rome in 1884 by Sotirios Voulgaris and opened its Via Condotti flagship in 1905. By the 1950s, when Rome was called Hollywood on the Tiber, its clients included Anna Magnani, Ingrid Bergman, Gina Lollobrigida and Elizabeth Taylor.

Taylor came to Rome to film Cleopatra, which resumed shooting at the Cinecitta studios on September 25, 1961, and wrapped on July 28, 1962, at a reported production cost of $31 million. On the set she began an affair with her co-star, Richard Burton, while both were married to other people. 'Undeniably one of the biggest advantages to filming Cleopatra in Rome was Bulgari's shop,' she later wrote. 'I used to visit Gianni Bulgari in the afternoon and we'd sit and swap stories.'

Burton put it more bluntly: 'The only Italian word Elizabeth knows is Bulgari.' Taylor divorced Eddie Fisher on March 5, 1964, and married Burton ten days later at the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal. The auction catalog records the necklace as a gift from Burton upon that marriage. They divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975 and divorced again in 1976; Taylor kept the emeralds for the rest of her life.

From the estate to the maker

Taylor died in Los Angeles on March 23, 2011, at 79. That December her jewels went to auction in New York. The necklace was offered on the evening of December 13 as lot 28, with the pendant-brooch as a separate lot immediately after it.

Estimated at $1 million to $1.5 million, the necklace sold for $6,130,500. The pendant-brooch then brought $6,578,500, a world auction record for an emerald jewel. The ear pendants followed at $3,218,500 and the bracelet at $4,002,500. The jewelry sale as a whole, 270 lots, brought $137,235,675, the most ever paid for a private collection of jewels at auction.

The buyer was announced as anonymous, but Bulgari was widely reported to have bought the main Taylor pieces. In February 2013, at a Roman-themed party at the house's Rodeo Drive boutique in Beverly Hills, the actress Julianne Moore wore the necklace, and the house put eight Taylor jewels on view in Oscar week. In 2016 Bulgari showed seven of them, described as now in its own collection, above its new Bond Street boutique in London, alongside costumes Taylor wore in Cleopatra.

How to recognize it

Count the stones: sixteen graduated emeralds, each ringed in round diamonds, alternating with diamond quatrefoils that include marquise and pear-shaped diamonds. The necklace is platinum, 14 1/4 inches, signed BVLGARI and dated 1962, with a hoop at the front. Its 2011 laboratory report is numbered CS 44854.

In photographs the necklace appears both bare and with the large pear-shaped emerald pendant hanging from its center. The pendant is a separate jewel with its own record and its own report, and the two were sold as separate lots.

Not every account of the necklace agrees. The auction catalog calls it a marriage gift of 1964, while the jewel itself is dated 1962. One 2016 exhibition text says Taylor wore it on her wedding day, a detail this page could not confirm from the other sources consulted.

The numbers

Carat weight

Not published in the sources consulted; sixteen emeralds

Color and clarity

No color grades published; 2011 laboratory report rates clarity enhancement insignificant to faint

Origin

Fifteen Colombian emeralds (the examining laboratory's president cites Muzo stones in the suite) and one from Sandawana, Zimbabwe

Cutter

Not recorded in the sources consulted

Setting

Platinum, signed BVLGARI, 1962, 14 1/4 inches

Timeline

1. 1884

   Sotirios Voulgaris founds the jewelry business in Rome that becomes Bulgari.

2. 1905

   Bulgari opens its Via Condotti shop, later the flagship.

3. 1958

   Bulgari makes the emerald and diamond pendant-brooch that the necklace was built to carry.

4. Sep 25, 1961

   Cleopatra resumes filming at Cinecitta in Rome with Taylor and Burton.

5. 1962

   Bulgari makes the necklace; Burton gives Taylor the pendant-brooch on their engagement.

6. Mar 15, 1964

   Taylor and Burton marry in Montreal; the necklace is recorded as Burton's marriage gift.

7. 1974

   Taylor and Burton divorce for the first time.

8. 1975

   Taylor and Burton remarry; they divorce again in 1976.

9. Mar 23, 2011

   Elizabeth Taylor dies in Los Angeles at age 79.

10. May 23, 2011

    A laboratory report classifies fifteen of the emeralds as Colombian and one as Zimbabwean.

11. Dec 13, 2011

    The necklace sells at auction in New York as lot 28 for $6,130,500.

12. Feb 2013

    Julianne Moore wears the necklace at Bulgari's Rodeo Drive celebration of Taylor's jewels.

13. 2016

    Bulgari exhibits seven Taylor jewels, now in its own collection, in London.

The world in 1962

• Feb 20, 1962

  John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth.

• Oct 1962

  The Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of nuclear war.

• Jun 12, 1963

  Cleopatra premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York.

• Feb 9, 1964

  The Beatles play The Ed Sullivan Show for a record 73 million viewers.

• Jul 2, 1964

  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is enacted in the United States.

• Aug 2, 1964

  The USS Maddox is attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, escalating the Vietnam War.

• Oct 10, 1964

  The Summer Olympics open in Tokyo, the first held in Asia.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Elizabeth Taylor's Bulgari Emerald & Diamond Necklace is number 25 of 100 in the jewelry entries of the FLOAT 100. 44 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (20 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• One of the sixteen emeralds is not Colombian: the laboratory traced it to the Sandawana deposit in Zimbabwe.
• The necklace sold for more than four times its high estimate of $1.5 million.
• It was built with a hoop at the front so that Taylor's 1958 Bulgari emerald brooch could hang from it.
• At 14 1/4 inches, it is short enough to sit close around the base of the neck.
• Burton joked, 'I introduced Liz to beer, she introduced me to Bulgari.'
• In 2013 the necklace was worn in public again, by Julianne Moore, at a Bulgari party in Beverly Hills.