The Arcots
The Hanoverian rulers of Great Britain amassed a large
collection of personal jewelry and Queen Charlotte, the consort of King George
III, was surely no excpetion. She received many jewels, the most notable being
the diamonds she was given by the Nawab of Arcot. These included five
brilliants, the larest of which was a 38.6-carat oval-shaped stone and was later
set in a necklace with the two smallest stones.
Arcot, a town near Madras, became famous for its capture and
defense by Clive in 1751 during the war between the rival claimants to the
throne of the Carnatic. In 1801 it passed into British hands following the
resignation of the government of Nawab Azim-Ud-Daula, who had given the diamonds
to Queen Charlotte in 1777. 
Queen Charlotte
The Queen died in 1818 and under the terms of her will the
Arcots were ordered to be sold to Rundell & Bridge who in 1804 had been
appointed jewelers and silversmiths to the Crown by King George III. The claus
about her "Personals" read:
"...of chief value being the jewels. First those which the
King bought for £50,000 and gave to me. Secondly those presented to me by the
Nawab of Arcot to my four remaining daughters, or to the survivors or survivor
in case they or any of them should die before me, and I direct that these jewels
should be sold and that the produce...shall be divided among them, my said
remaining daughters or their survivors, share and share alike."
However, a delay resulted in the implementing of the Queen's
will. This was the result of the attitude taken by her eldest son, George IV,
who upon the death of his father George III in 1820, decided that the whole of
his father's property should pass to himself, not upon the Crown. Consequently
he appropriated the money and the jewels and acted in a similar manner with
regards to his mother's jewelry. The Arcots were set in a crown for George IV
and later in the crown of Queen Adelaide, the consort of his successor, William
IV.
The terms of Queen Charlotte's will concerning the pieces of
jewelry were thus not executed until many years after she died. King George IV
died on June 26, 1830. John Bridge of Rundell & Bridge died in 1834; the firm
was sold and the executors ordered the sale of the Arcots together with the
round brilliant with may have been the Hastings Diamond and which had also been
set in the crown made for George IV. The historic sale took place in London at
Willis's Room in St. James on July 20th, 1837. The first Marquess of Westminster
bought the Arcots for £10,000 as part of a birthday present for his wife. He
also bought the round brilliant and the Nassak Diamond.
The Westminster Tiara. The large round center diamond was thought to be the
Hastings Diamond. The Arcots are on either side.
The Arcots and the other diamonds remained in the possession
of the Grosvenor family for many years. In 1930 the Parisian jeweler Lacloche
mounted the Arcots in the Westminster Tiara, a bandeau style piece, together
with the round brilliant and no less than 1421 smaller smaller diamonds. The
tiara was pieced to form a design of pave-set scrolls with arcading, and with
clusters of marquise-shaped diamonds between the sections, tapering slightly at
the sides, with baguette diamond banding framing the large center stone and with
diamond baguettes dispersed singly throughout the tiara. In her memoirs, Loelia,
Duchess of Westminster, third wife of the second Duke of Westminster, wrote
about the Arcots, "fixed by themselves on the safety-pin they looked extremely
bogus, so that a friend who saw me that evening remarked, 'What on earth does
Loelia think she's doing, pinning those two lumps of glass on herself?'" 
The Van Cleef & Arpels necklace, with the Arcot I at the
bottom.
In June of 1959 the third Duke of Westminster sold the
Westminster Tiara to help meet the cost of heavy death-duties. Harry Winston
paid £110,000 for it at auction - then a world record price for a piece of
jewelry. Mr. Winston had the two Arcots recut in order to obtain greater clarity
and brilliance, the larger to 30.99 metric carats and the smaller to 18.85
metric carats. Each was remounted in a ring and sold to American clients in 1959
and 1960 respectively. The larger of the two, Arcot I, was then set as the
pendant to a necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels and was later sold at auction at
Christie's in Geneva in November of 1993 when it was bought by Sheik Ahmed
Hassan Fitaihi, the Saudi Arabian dealer.