The Rockefeller Emerald

A brooch for Abby Rockefeller

In 1930 John D. Rockefeller Jr., the only son of the Standard Oil co-founder, bought a brooch through a private owner as a gift for his wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. The brooch, said to be by Van Cleef & Arpels, centered on a large emerald that a 2017 auction essay described as having mesmerizing color and impeccable clarity.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1874 and the daughter of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, had married John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1901. She was a major patron of modern art and the Museum of Modern Art, to which she bequeathed works by Seurat and Van Gogh. She died of a heart attack at the family's 740 Park Avenue apartment on April 5, 1948, at 73.

After her death, her husband turned to the New York jeweler Raymond Yard to take the brooch apart. Its emeralds were distributed among the Rockefeller children, and the large center stone, weighing about 18.04 carats, went to the youngest son, David Rockefeller.

Raymond Yard, the family jeweler

Raymond Carter Yard was born in 1885 in Montclair, New Jersey, the son of a railroad conductor. After his father died, William Elder Marcus, owner of the New York firm Marcus & Co., offered the boy a job; at 13 Yard left school and moved to Manhattan with his mother. He rose through the firm and built close relationships with its wealthy clients.

One of them was John D. Rockefeller Jr., who encouraged Yard to go out on his own. Yard left Marcus & Co. at 37 and opened his first salon in May 1922 at 527 Fifth Avenue; within four years the business had moved up the avenue. Rockefeller introduced him to other prominent families, including the Vanderbilts, du Ponts and Woolworths.

So it was natural that David Rockefeller brought the family emerald to Yard. In 1948 Yard mounted it as a ring in an understated platinum setting, flanked on either side by trapezoid and circular-cut diamonds, and delivered it in a red Raymond C. Yard case. The 2017 catalog called it one of Yard's most important private commissions.

From the Rockefellers to the saleroom

David Rockefeller, born in 1915, became one of the best-known bankers of his era, serving as chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan. The emerald later left the family. Press reports at the time of the 2017 sale said an American collector had bought it about a decade earlier, still in its Yard setting; the consignor was identified only as an important American collector. David Rockefeller died on March 20, 2017, at 101, three months before the stone went back on the block.

Ahead of the sale, two laboratories examined it in May 2017. One classified its origin as Colombia with no indications of clarity enhancement. The other called it "Classic Colombia" with no clarity enhancement and wrote that "the unusual combination of size, provenance, absence of treatment and quality factors" contributed to its rarity and desirability.

It was offered on June 20, 2017, as lot 126 at an auction in New York held at Rockefeller Center, a setting the catalog noted was fitting, since the complex had been John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s "city within a city." The estimate was $4 million to $6 million.

"At any price"

Harry Winston, the New York jeweler owned since 2013 by the Swatch Group, wanted the stone. Its chief executive, Nayla Hayek, sent the company's chief financial officer, Robert Scott, to bid with instructions to "bring this magnificent gem home at any price." Earlier that year she had said the brand was planning a museum in New York and would focus on buying important historic stones and jewels.

Scott won it for $5,511,500 including fees. That worked out to about $305,000 per carat, a world auction record per carat for an emerald. The record for the highest total price for an emerald still belonged to Elizabeth Taylor's 23.46-carat Bulgari emerald brooch, sold in December 2011 for about $6.5 million; the Rockefeller stone took the per-carat record. After the sale Hayek said the company was "immensely proud to own the finest emerald in the world which once belonged to one of America's most important dynasties." Harry Winston renamed it the Rockefeller-Winston Emerald.

In November 2024 a 37-carat emerald once owned by Nina Dyer sold for a higher total price, but trade reports noted that the Rockefeller stone still held the per-carat record for an emerald at auction.

How to recognize it

As sold in 2017, the ring set an octagonal step-cut emerald of approximately 18.04 carats between trapezoid and circular-cut diamonds, mounted in platinum, ring size 7 3/4, signed Yard and numbered A14976, in its red Raymond C. Yard case. It is illustrated in N. Kuzmanovic's 2007 book on Raymond Yard.

Harry Winston has since presented the stone in a new signature Winston-style ring, describing it as an 18.03-carat square emerald-cut Colombian emerald. The sources consulted do not explain the 0.01-carat difference from the 2017 weight or say when the stone was reset, so both figures are given here as published.

The numbers

Carat weight

Approximately 18.04 carats (2017 catalog); Harry Winston now describes it as 18.03 carats

Color and clarity

No color grade published; laboratory reports found no clarity enhancement, and one classed it Classic Colombia

Origin mine

Colombia; the specific mine is not stated in the sources consulted

Cutter

Not recorded in the sources consulted

Cut

Octagonal step cut (2017); described by Harry Winston as square emerald-cut

Setting (1948-2017)

Platinum ring by Raymond C. Yard with trapezoid and circular-cut diamonds, signed Yard, no. A14976

Timeline

1. Oct 26, 1874

   Abby Greene Aldrich is born in Providence, Rhode Island.

2. 1885

   Raymond Carter Yard is born in Montclair, New Jersey.

3. 1901

   Abby Aldrich marries John D. Rockefeller Jr.

4. Jun 12, 1915

   David Rockefeller, the couple's youngest child, is born in New York City.

5. May 1922

   With Rockefeller's encouragement, Raymond Yard opens his own salon at 527 Fifth Avenue.

6. 1930

   John D. Rockefeller Jr. buys a brooch centered on the emerald for his wife, through a private owner.

7. Apr 5, 1948

   Abby Aldrich Rockefeller dies in New York.

8. 1948

   Yard dismantles the brooch; the 18.04-carat center stone goes to David Rockefeller and is mounted as a ring, no. A14976.

9. 2007

   N. Kuzmanovic's book on Raymond Yard illustrates the ring.

10. Dec 2011

    Elizabeth Taylor's 23.46-carat Bulgari emerald brooch sells at auction, setting an emerald auction record.

11. Mar 20, 2017

    David Rockefeller dies at 101.

12. May 3, 2017

    An American laboratory reports the emerald as Classic Colombia with no clarity enhancement.

13. May 8, 2017

    A second laboratory reports Colombian origin with no indications of clarity enhancement.

14. Jun 20, 2017

    The ring sells at auction in New York to Harry Winston for $5,511,500, a per-carat record for an emerald; it is renamed the Rockefeller-Winston Emerald.

15. Nov 12, 2024

    The Aga Khan Emerald sets a higher total price for an emerald at auction; the Rockefeller stone keeps the per-carat record.

The world in 1930

• Feb 18, 1930

  Clyde Tombaugh confirms the existence of Pluto.

• Mar 12, 1930

  Mahatma Gandhi sets off on the Salt March against the British salt monopoly in India.

• Jun 17, 1930

  President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

• Jul 30, 1930

  Uruguay beats Argentina 4-2 to win the first FIFA World Cup in Montevideo.

• Apr 7, 1948

  The World Health Organization is established.

• May 14, 1948

  The State of Israel declares independence.

• Jul 29, 1948

  The Summer Olympics open in London, the first since 1936.

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 Rockefeller Emerald is number 26 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 (24 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 2017 sale took place at Rockefeller Center, built by the same John D. Rockefeller Jr. who bought the emerald in 1930.
• Before it was a ring, the emerald was the center of a brooch; its smaller emeralds were divided among the Rockefeller children in 1948.
• Raymond Yard went to work in a jewelry firm at 13, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. later urged him to start his own business.
• Harry Winston's CEO sent the company's chief financial officer to the saleroom with orders to win it at any price.
• David Rockefeller died at 101 just three months before the emerald he once owned set a world record.
• The stone kept its 1948 Yard setting for nearly seventy years before Harry Winston reset it.