Cather­ine the Great

Clearly, Cather­ine the Great under­stood power. Even though it has not been proven if she had a hand in the assas­si­na­tion of her hus­band, Grand Duke Peter, grand­son of Peter the Great, her story reads as one of sur­vival of the fittest. What is well known is that the Empress  enjoyed the sov­er­eignty of jew­elry; she pos­sessed one of the great­est col­lec­tions of all time. Accord­ing to the auc­tion house, the brooch is mounted with a Columbian emer­ald of sixty to sev­enty carats. Sur­round­ing the cen­tral gem are rose– and old mine-cut dia­monds, and this being the eigh­teenth cen­tury, the entire orna­ment is set in silver-topped gold. The esti­mate for the jewel is $1,000,000 — 1,500,000, how­ever I’d ven­ture to wage that the ham­mer price will be stratos­pher­i­cally higher.

The Cather­ine the Great Emer­ald and Dia­mond Brooch