User:Symbolic & Chase/sandbox

The Mary Tudor Pearl
The Renaissance pearl surfaced in 2004 when it was bought by its current owners, Bond Street jewellers Symbolic & Chase, and named the Pearl of Kuwait in recognition of the gulf waters in which so many important pearls have been found. It measures 258.12 grains (64.5 carats, 69.8 carats with its diamond cap) making it the third largest well-formed natural pearl drop documented today. Natural saltwater pearls of this size are not found today. These pearls have always been highly coveted and consequently were owned by royal families or important members of the aristocracy. This was mentioned in Christie’s comments in the original catalogue entry: ‘Unfortunately the provenance of this great pearl has been lost in the passage of time. However from its sheer size and beauty it is hard to imagine that it was not at some point one of the principal pearls in a royal collection…Comparatively few unrecorded pearls will weigh more than 200 grains, especially a well formed drop of good colour and fine skin, which must be considered one of nature’s rarest creations.’

The information below is based on the research of Annemarie Jordan Gschwend
Empress Isabella of Portugal is the first documented owner of the pearl that went on to be most significantly owned by Mary Tudor. Whilst the exact date of her acquisition of the pearl remains undocumented, the pearl is included in the very detailed inventories of her possessions collated in the years after her unexpected death in 1539, where it can be identified by weight.

Philip II of Spain borrowed the pearl from his mother’s collection on the occasion of his first wedding to Princess Maria of Portugal in 1543. She then in turn died in 1545 during childbirth and the pearl is included in her post mortem inventory. It is then returned to treasurer of Empress Isabella’s jewels.

Princess Juana of Austria inherited the pearl in 1551 in accordance with her father Charles V's division of Empress Isabella’s large estate. This is annotated in the left hand margin of the post mortem inventory. The pearl is then further documented in Juana's dowry inventory of 1553 showing that she took it with her to Portugal.

Philip II of Spain acquired the pearl from his sister Juana of Austria upon her return from Portugal in May of 1554, following the premature death of her husband Prince John. Philip II was preparing his marriage to Mary Tudor at that time and was conscious of Mary Tudor’s sentimentality regarding her mother’s Habsburg heritage. He commissioned the Italian court jeweller Jacopo da Trezzo to create a jewel incorporating two great Habsburg gems; the Grande table-cut diamond he had inherited from his mother and the large pearl pendant now called the Mary Tudor Pearl.

Mary Tudor received the Habsburg jewel comprising the pearl and the Grande diamond from Philip’s envoy and majordomo, the Marquis de las Navas, in June 1554. Charles V had already gifted her a smaller table-cut diamond after the marriage contract was signed in January 1554, and this was mounted as the surmount for the incredible jewel by Trezzo in England. This is the jewel that is described at her wedding and the jewel Mary Tudor wears in her iconic portrait by the Habsburg court painter Anthonis Mor in November 1554, now in the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, and then later that year by Hans Eworth, in a portrait that is in the National Portrait Gallery. Mary Tudor and Philip II were married in 1554, the same year as these famous paintings depicting Mary I wearing the Grande jewel.

These portraits have been mis-catalogued in the past as depicting the famous Peregrina pearl (which weighs 204 grains) and the Peregrina has been more widely mistaken for the pearl that Mary Tudor was given by Philip II as an engagement gift in 1554. The Peregrina was however only first recorded in 1579. It is first mentioned in the writings of the historian Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539 – 1616) in 1609 when he details the pearl being brought from Panama to Seville in 1579 by a Spanish courtier of Portugese descent Diego de Temez (Teve or Teive) with the intention of selling it to Philip II. Philip II had designated the Peregrina to be a gift for his daughter on the occasion of her marriage, but he was so enamoured with it that he decided to keep it for himself. As per his testament, the pearl officially became part of the Spanish Crown Jewels in 1598, when it was paired with the Estanque diamond. The Estanque diamond was a large table-cut diamond that Philip II gave his third wife Isabel de Valois in 1560. At the time it was considered the largest most perfect diamond in Europe. It was paired with the Peregrina pearl and prominently worn by Spanish Royals until its theft by Joseph Bonaparte in 1813. The design of Estanque jewel, comprising a large pearl pendant suspended from a large table-cut diamond, has also added to the confusion due to its resemblance to the Grande jewel composed of the Grande table-cut diamond, suspending the Mary Tudor Pearl. When Christie's auctioned Elizabeth Taylor's collection of jewelry on the 15th December 2011 in New York, the Peregrina was carefully catalogued. Its first owner is cited as Philip II, the accompanying essays confirmed 1579 as its first documented apparition and Mary Tudor is not mentioned.

Philip II of Spain receives the pearl in 1558 upon the death of his wife as per her testament of 1557. The pearl is then not recorded until after the death Juana of Austria appearing in the auction records of Juana’s estate in 1574. In 1581 Diego Ruiz purchased the Mary Tudor Pearl for 3,300 reales and the pearl disappeared from official records until 2004 when it was consigned by a undisclosed private family for auction at Christie’s.