The splendour of erstwhile Indian maharajas is legendary. Their magnificent natural diamond jewels, from turban ornaments to great ropes of gems and armfuls of bracelets, were just one aspect of the public display of power and wealth that they presented to their subjects.
Everything from their clothes and their swords to cups and even carpets, were encrusted with diamonds and precious gems, contributing to the rich history of diamonds in India (opens in a new window). Their enormous treasuries are perhaps no surprise given that, until diamonds were discovered in Brazil in the 18th century and South Africa in the 19th century, India had been the world’s only source of diamonds and was also the centre of the global gem trade.
The impact of European jewellers on India’s royal jewels
In the early 20th century, the lavish spectacle of the maharajas’ princely splendour took on a particularly European flavour when many of them travelled to Paris and London to place orders with leading jewellers for their large treasuries of gems and jewels to be set and reset in the latest European styles.
The most famous of these is Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, which occupies a special place in natural diamond history (opens in a new window). In 1928, Cartier Paris completed what became one of the single largest orders in its history and certainly its most impressive. Some pieces were in Indian style, some in European, and many were created in platinum, the favoured metal at the time over the Indian tradition of yellow gold.
The best-known creation today is the Patiala necklace (opens in a new window), a magnificent chest-covering bib featuring five strands of 2,930 diamonds, including the light yellow 234.65-carat De Beers diamond, and two rubies. Although made in platinum, it followed the Indian tradition in form and was worn on an adjustable and tasselled rope of silk. No wonder that French magazine L’Illustration waxed lyrical about the commission’s subsequent display at Cartier Paris before it was delivered to the Maharaja.
How historic natural diamonds were reset into new jewels
If that were not enough, that same year, Singh also placed an enormous order at Boucheron. He travelled to Paris with six iron chests of precious gems and pearls, including 7,000 diamonds and 14,000 emeralds, which were worked into 149 pieces of jewellery.
The Patiala maharaja may have been the most prolific commissioner of European jewels, but he certainly was not the first. According to Chaumet’s archives, Maharaja Tukoji Rao III of Indore bought two exceptional pear-shaped Golconda diamonds, each of 47 carats, from the jeweller in October 1913.
Now known as the Indore Pear diamonds, they were set by Chaumet into a lavalier necklace of devastating simplicity and elegance, the pendants set at each end of a thin rope of platinum and diamonds seemingly casually knotted at its centre.
In 1933, Tukoji’s son and successor, Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Holkar II, was captured by French society painter Bernard Boutet de Monvel wearing the necklace together with traditional Maratha dress and an impressive double strand of natural pearls. The Indore Pears were not to remain in that form for long, however.
Yeshwant was a committed Europhile who had been educated at Oxford and who had developed a passion for modern art and architecture. He appointed Mauboussin as his official jeweller in 1933 and the firm set about transforming his existing collection of jewels and gems.
The Maharaja commissioned the jeweller to incorporate the Indore Pears into a long double-stranded necklace of strict Art Deco symmetry. In its design, which was completed in 1938, the two diamonds flanked a smaller example in the same cut together with two large emerald-cut diamonds, a large octagonal-shaped emerald and a chain of large baguette-cut diamonds.
A 1931 Boutet de Monvel portrait of the Maharaja’s first wife, Sanyogita, in fashionable Western dress, was later updated to include the necklace. She had tragically died in 1937, following an appendectomy, aged just 22.
The most extraordinary natural diamonds in royal India
During his lifetime, Maharaja Ranjitsinhji of Nawanagar developed an international reputation as an expert on gemstones. He shared his passion for them with Jacques Cartier and the two became close friends. The Maharaja commissioned many impressive pieces from Cartier London, none more spectacular than the diamond necklace the maison created for his 25th anniversary Jubilee celebrations in 1931.
Later described by Jacques as ‘the most extraordinary piece’ in Ranjitsinhji’s entire collection and ‘a really superb realisation of a connoisseur’s dream’, the Nawanagar necklace incorporated the Maharaja’s enormous 136.25-carat central white diamond; later named the Ranjitsinhji diamond, as well as round white diamonds from an existing necklace. It also contained an unparalleled selection of natural diamonds (opens in a new window), some of which were also from Ranjitsinhji’s existing collection. These included a large blue diamond and a large pink described by Jacques as ‘the finest pink diamond existing’. A rare 12-carat green diamond came from a dealer in Cairo and still more were sourced from Cartier stock.
This combination of exceptionally rare and beautiful diamonds was made possible by the availability of such gems on the market during the early 20th century period, in part thanks to the prolific deposits discovered in Africa and in part thanks to gems changing hands as a result of revolution and political upheaval around the world. As Jacques himself wrote, at ‘no other time in history could such a necklace have come into existence’.
The legacy of India’s lost jewels that lives on
Sadly, most of these legendary creations of the Maharajas no longer exist today. The Patiala necklace was saved by the Cartier Collection after being discovered in 1998 with most of its most valuable gemstones removed. Cartier restored it and replaced the missing gems with replicas.
The others however have been broken up and the diamonds dispersed, whether due to shifting fashions or shifting fortunes. The Indore Pears have since passed through several hands, including those of Harry Winston and now lie in jeweller Robert Mouawad’s diamond collection in Lebanon, one of the largest private collections in the world. The maharajas’ jewels may have changed hands over the decades, but their legacy still remains.
