The Hutton-Mdivani Jadeite Necklace

Beads with no birth certificate

No one knows where the 27 beads came from. The 2014 sale catalog calls their provenance undetermined and compares them to the many treasures that left China, and were never traced, during the late Qing and early Republican period. Its reasoning is circumstantial: the beads were already in Europe by the early 1930s, they would have taken time to travel there, and Cartier would have taken time to source and assemble a piece of this kind. On that basis the catalog dates the beads to at least the late Qing dynasty. A 2014 account published when the Cartier Collection bought the necklace goes further and says it is possible they were cut in the 18th century. The catalog's condition notes suggest the beads may have had a noble origin in China, while dating them to the early 20th century.

What makes them remarkable is size and matching. The catalog explains that the finest jadeite, often called 'old mine' material and associated with the mines at Hpakan in Burma, comes in boulders that are scarce and small, so most beads polished from top-quality rough measure only 5 to 10 millimeters across. The smallest bead on this strand is 15.4 millimeters and the largest 19.2. To make a matched strand, all the beads must be carved from one boulder, and cutters often produce up to three times as many beads as they need in order to choose the best-matched ones.

Two laboratories examined the beads before the 2014 sale. A Hong Kong jade laboratory found them to be natural 'A jade,' the trade term for jadeite with no treatment, and a Swiss laboratory found no indications of impregnation, adding in an appendix that the beads show 'a perfectly matching colour, combined with an outstanding translucency and excellent lustre.' The catalog's own condition report describes white cloud inclusions visible only under strong transmitted light, which it calls a common feature of natural jadeite.

The heiress and the prince

Barbara Woolworth Hutton was born in New York City on November 14, 1912, the only child of Edna Woolworth, daughter of the five-and-dime founder Frank W. Woolworth, and Franklyn Laws Hutton, a co-founder of the brokerage E. F. Hutton & Company. Her mother died when Barbara was four. In 1924 her grandmother left her $26.1 million, and by her 21st birthday in 1933 her father had grown her inheritance to $42 million, making her one of the wealthiest women in the world. The press called her the 'Poor Little Rich Girl,' first for a lavish debutante ball thrown in 1930 in the depths of the Great Depression and later for a troubled private life that ran through seven marriages.

Her first husband was Alexis Mdivani, the youngest of the 'Marrying Mdivanis,' five siblings from a Georgian noble family who fled Tbilisi after the Soviet invasion of 1921, styled themselves princes, and married into wealth and fame. Alexis had been married to Louise Astor Van Alen, a friend of Barbara's from Rhode Island society. Accounts of how that marriage ended and his romance with Barbara began differ in their details, but both of the reference histories consulted describe it as a scandal engineered in part by his sister Roussadana. Alexis and Barbara married on June 22, 1933, in the Russian Orthodox church in Paris. Her father provided a $1 million dowry.

The necklace was Franklyn Hutton's wedding gift to his daughter. When it was given, it closed with a Cartier clasp set with a single navette-cut diamond. On the day after Christmas in 1933, the new Princess Mdivani wore it to the opening night of the 51st season of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. One account dates its first public appearance to her 21st birthday celebration instead; another says it debuted at the wedding.

The marriage was brief. The couple divorced in March 1935, and that summer Alexis Mdivani died at 27 after crashing his Rolls-Royce in Catalonia, Spain. Barbara went on to marry a Danish count, the actor Cary Grant and four more husbands. She died in Beverly Hills on May 11, 1979, aged 66.

Cartier's green and red

Hutton was passionate about jade. In 1934, on the advice of experts in the stone, she commissioned Cartier to replace the original clasp with the one the necklace still wears: yellow gold set with calibré-cut rubies and baguette diamonds, chosen to intensify the deep green of the beads. At the same time she ordered a matching jade, ruby and diamond ring, which is also in the Cartier Collection today.

The clasp reflects Cartier's early interest in Chinese art and jade at the start of the 20th century. Setting red against green was a bold choice for the period. The 2014 sale catalog, describing the finished piece, says the necklace was made and completed by Cartier in 1933, while the Cartier Collection's own account dates the current clasp to 1934; the difference reflects the two stages of the necklace, the gift and the remodeling. The catalog describes the necklace itself as unsigned.

The necklace sat among some of the most celebrated jewels of the century. Hutton's collection included the Pasha diamond, which she had Cartier mount as a ring, a pearl necklace once owned by Marie Antoinette, and the Romanov emeralds, mounted by Cartier on a necklace that converted into a tiara. Her rivals as collectors and style leaders included Daisy Fellowes and Wallis Simpson, later the Duchess of Windsor.

Three records in 26 years

After about 20 years, Hutton gave the necklace to her childhood friend Louise Van Alen, Alexis Mdivani's first wife, who had also married into the Mdivani family. The 2014 catalog lists its provenance as Barbara Hutton, Louise Van Alen and Princess Nina Mdivani, Alexis's sister, who died in London on February 19, 1987. The necklace was kept in the family until 1988.

That year it made its first appearance at auction, in Geneva, and sold for $2 million, then the highest price ever paid for any piece of jadeite jewelry. Six years later, in 1994, it was offered at auction in Hong Kong and sold for $4.2 million, setting the jadeite record again. One account written after the 2014 sale also notes that the necklace later became the subject of a contentious lawsuit; the details are not public in the sources consulted.

On April 7, 2014, it came to auction in Hong Kong again as the top lot of a sale of jewels and jadeite. Reports of the contest differ slightly: one says bidding lasted 18 minutes, others say 20 minutes, and accounts give the number of bidders as eight in total or as the winner plus six others. The pre-sale estimate is reported as $12.8 million by two accounts and $12 million by a third. All agree on the result: $27.44 million, more than double the estimate, a world auction record for any jadeite jewel and for any Cartier jewel.

The buyer was the Cartier Collection, the jeweler's own archive of its historic creations, which had about 1,300 to 1,500 pieces at the time, depending on the account, and has been exhibited in museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the British Museum in London and the Palace Museum in Beijing. The specialist who led the department that sold it called the contest one of the most thrilling in the history of the saleroom.

How to identify it

The necklace is a single strand of 27 graduated, highly translucent bright emerald green jadeite beads, the largest about 19.2 millimeters (the condition report measures it at 19.16) and the smallest 15.4. The strand is about 530 millimeters long. The clasp is a geometric Art Deco design of calibré-cut rubies and baguette diamonds, mounted in platinum and 18k yellow gold. The catalog graded the diamonds at about F to G color and mostly VS clarity, and described the rubies as strong red and eye clean.

Its laboratory papers are a Hong Kong jade laboratory certificate numbered KJ 84088 (1-5), dated January 23, 2014, and a Swiss laboratory report numbered 73188, dated February 28, 2014, both stating that the jadeite is natural. Two archive photographs help date its changes: one shows Hutton wearing it as she arrived at the Metropolitan Opera with Alexis Mdivani in 1933, and another, from the 1930s, shows the necklace after the new Cartier clasp was fitted.

The numbers

Beads

27, graduated, about 19.2 to 15.4 mm

Color

Bright emerald green, highly translucent

Treatment

None; natural 'Type A' jadeite (certificates KJ 84088 and 73188, 2014)

Origin

Not documented; the beads' source and original owner are unknown

Maker

Cartier (necklace and 1934 clasp); unsigned

Clasp stones

Calibré-cut rubies and baguette diamonds (about F to G color, mostly VS)

Length

About 530 mm

Timeline

1. Nov 14, 1912

   Barbara Woolworth Hutton is born in New York City.

2. 1924

   Hutton's grandmother dies and leaves her $26.1 million in trust.

3. Jun 22, 1933

   Hutton marries Alexis Mdivani in Paris. Her father's wedding gift is a strand of 27 jadeite beads on a Cartier clasp set with one navette-cut diamond.

4. Nov 14, 1933

   Hutton turns 21; her inheritance stands at $42 million. One account says the necklace was first shown publicly at her birthday celebration.

5. Dec 26, 1933

   Hutton, now Princess Mdivani, wears the necklace to opening night at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

6. 1934

   Hutton commissions Cartier to replace the clasp with the current ruby and baguette diamond clasp, plus a matching jade ring.

7. Mar 1935

   Hutton and Mdivani divorce. He dies in a car crash in Catalonia that summer.

8. May 11, 1979

   Barbara Hutton dies in Beverly Hills, aged 66.

9. Feb 19, 1987

   Princess Nina Mdivani, named in the necklace's provenance, dies in London.

10. 1988

    The necklace makes its auction debut in Geneva and sells for $2 million, a record for jadeite jewelry.

11. 1994

    Sold at auction in Hong Kong for $4.2 million, again a record for jadeite jewelry.

12. Jan 23, 2014

    A Hong Kong jade laboratory certifies the beads as natural, untreated 'A jade'.

13. Feb 28, 2014

    A Swiss laboratory reports no indications of impregnation and praises the beads' matching color and translucency.

14. Apr 7, 2014

    Sold at auction in Hong Kong for $27.44 million to the Cartier Collection, records for jadeite and for Cartier.

The world in 1933

• Mar 2, 1933

  The original King Kong premieres in New York.

• Mar 5, 1933

  In the depths of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a national bank holiday, closing every bank in the country.

• Apr 19, 1933

  The United States goes off the gold standard.

• May 18, 1933

  Roosevelt signs the act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority as part of the New Deal.

• Dec 1933

  Prohibition ends three weeks before the Metropolitan Opera's opening night, and the opera house gets its liquor license back days before the season begins.

• Dec 26, 1933

  Ten inches of snow fall on New York on the night the opera season opens, shutting airstrips and bridges.

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, The Hutton-Mdivani Jadeite Necklace is number 17 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 (16 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• To make a matched strand, jadeite cutters may carve up to three times as many beads as they need from a single boulder, then keep only the best-matched ones.
• The current ruby clasp is a replacement: the necklace was given with a Cartier clasp set with a single navette-cut diamond, and Hutton had it changed a year later.
• The necklace set the world record for jadeite jewelry in 1988, again in 1994, and again in 2014, when its price was more than 13 times its 1988 result.
• Hutton's first husband, Alexis Mdivani, had previously been married to Louise Van Alen, and Hutton later gave the necklace to Van Alen.
• Hutton's ruby-and-jade ring, ordered from Cartier the same year as the clasp to match the necklace, was in the Cartier Collection before the necklace was.
• The night Hutton wore the necklace to the opera in 1933, the bar was serving liquor legally again for the first time in years, after Prohibition ended that month.