Two diamond-encrusted Cartier brooches, once owned by the arts patron Virginia Courtauld, have been acquired by English Heritage and go on display today at her former home, Eltham Palace in London.
The brooches, depicting a falcon and a white Tudor rose, were a gift from her husband, Stephen to mark the restoration of the palace in south east London. Stephen, was the younger brother of Samuel who founded The Courtauld Institute of Art.
English Heritage wouldn’t confirm the final sale price but according to the website of auctioneers Dreweatts, the pair sold for £19,000, on a guide price of between £15-20,000. The acquisition was funded with support from the Wolfson Foundation and a grant of £11,478 from the Art Fund.
Virginia was a deeply unconventional character for Edwardian England. She grew up in London, the daughter of an Italian shipping magnate Riccardo Peirano, and Rosa Balint, a Romanian peasant, and in her teens she got a large tattoo of a dragon up her right leg. She used to dress up as a man so she could drive sports cars around Brooklands race track. Her and her second husband, Stephen, became patrons of the arts, providing financial support for the Courtauld Galleries in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum. Stephen was financial director of Ealing Studios and a trustee of the Royal Opera House.
During the Second World War they moved to Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where they were involved in the black liberation movement there. They funded the construction of the Courtauld Theatre in Mutare, today Zimbabwe’s third largest city. It was reported that when the question arose of racial segregation in the theatre they made it clear they would pull the building down before agreeing to such a measure.
Stephen commissioned the brooches from Cartier in December 1934. They were specifically made by Cartier using the stained-glass window designs by the English artist George Kruger Gray (1880-1943), which were installed at Eltham Palace and can still be seen in the Great Hall.
Kevin Booth, English Heritage’s head collections curator, said: “Virginia Courtauld’s beautiful, Cartier diamond and gem set brooches epitomise the glamorous, modern spirit that Stephen and Virginia brought to Eltham Palace when they restored and extended it in the 1930s.
“The brooches perfectly bring together the old in the form of Edward IV’s cyphers, and the new with a 1930s palette of pink tourmaline and blue sapphire—which is exactly what Virginia and Stephen set out to do at Eltham. The brooches are not only significant as pieces of high-quality Cartier workmanship, but as a deeply personal gift from husband to wife. It’s wonderful that they have found their way home.”
