CARTIER: GEM-SET BEAD AND DIAMOND NECKLACE, CIRCA 1925
The front set with three rows of graduating turquoise beads alternating with ruby spacers, continuing to a double-row backchain of similar design, connected each side via an old brilliant and single-cut diamond geometric plaque with lily-of-the-valley terminals, signed Cartier, indistinctly numbered, length 38.5cm, Cartier case
Footnotes:
Please note, lots 206 - 216 are from a Private Collection of 20th Century Jewels.

Provenance:
Mrs Alice Lurcy (1906-1980)
Sotheby's New York, 14th April 2011, lot 179

In 1957, Sotheby's Parke-Bernet sold the collection of French investment banker Georges Lurcy. The collection comprised 65 Impressionist paintings, 18th century furniture and objets d'art and totalled $2,221,355. Time Magazine described the historic sale as 'The Greatest Auction'. The ticketed event was limited to 1700 people seated in three salerooms and for the first time closed-circuit television was used to relay live proceedings. The auction was attended by some of the wealthiest, most consequential people in the world who included Eleanor Roosevelt, Helena Rubenstein, Mr and Mrs Winthrop Aldrich, Mrs Stavros Niarchos, the agent for Paul Mellon, James Rorimer, Director of the Met, Charles Durand-Ruel, Mr and Mrs Robert Lehman, plus members of the Rockefeller, Ford and Vanderbilt families.

The auction was followed 24 years later by the sale of Georges' wife's magnificent jewellery collection that included pieces by Lacloche, Mauboussin and Cartier. The present lot was kept by the family until it was sold on 14 April 2011, at Sotheby's New York, 'Magnificent Jewels', lot 179.

Georges Lurcy (born Levy, the son of a modest Jewish family in Alsace), made his fortune in banking and investments and in developing hydroplanes during World War One. Generous to a fault, he installed his mother and brother in the best quarter of Paris and constantly entertained friends in his homes in Paris and Deauville. In 1937 he married Alice Snow Barbee, an American from High Point, North Carolina, whom he described as 'the only luxury in my life I do not share'. At the advent of World War Two, the couple fled to the USA, eventually settling in New York's Fifth Avenue with an estate on Long Island. The Lurcy's loved to surround themselves in opulence with Georges adding to his art collection, of which he was very proud, as well as showering Alice in exquisite jewels. He saw the acquisition of art as 'money reaping paradise'. Alice writing in 1945 told him 'you are the dearest, most exquisite little husband in the whole wide world; I love you so tenderly, and I want you to know that you have been the only happiness, love and pleasure in my whole life.'

Beads are a mix of blue and green hues, some with lighter patches and are well represented in the photographs. A verbal assessment from GCS laboratory London confirms they are turquoise of natural colour but with some form of coating/impregnation. Diamond clasp with indistinct numbers on each side of the gallery; also stamped CARTIER. The other diamond link of matching design is unmarked. Light wear.