NEW YORK – Little girls are encouraged to dream of the day their prince will come, bearing lavish gifts of jewelry. The only gift that could top such a thing would be jewelry that is actually made by a prince. The great and the good of 20th-century Europe and America enjoyed something very close to that dream: Jewelry made by an honest-to-god, no-kidding duke.
Fulco Santostefano della Cerda, Duke of Verdura (1898-1978) created jewelry that graced the necks, ears, and limbs of the biggest names of his day – names such as Babe Paley, Diana Vreeland, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Clare Booth Luce.
He was the protégé of Coco Chanel, the cousin of renowned Italian author and prince Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and a friend of Cecil Beaton and Nancy Mitford. He designed the jewelry worn by Katharine Hepburn in the 1940 film The Philadelphia Story. He loaned his creations to Horst P. Horst for magazine fashion shoots.
He and Salvador Dalí collaborated on a collection of Surrealist jewelry that was shown at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1941, and soon after at the Museum of Modern Art and other prominent US museums. In his final decade, Cartier wooed the duke, promising ‘total artistic license’ and a dedicated display window on Fifth Avenue; he said no.
And in 1975, Verdura fulfilled a commission for a silver rose, a gift for the Royal Opera House in London to memorialize the son of the librettist of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, for use in subsequent performances of that show.
Verdura, known as Fulco to his friends, did not aspire to a career as a jeweler. Like most European men of his era who received titles upon their birth or were destined to inherit them on the death of their father, he did not expect to do anything that resembled true toil. In his time, aristocrats who worked for pay were still seen by their peers as vulgar and even disgraceful.
This is not to say Verdura was idle, or a layabout. During World War I, the teenager joined the Italian army as a second lieutenant, fought at Caporetto, and was discharged after suffering a shoulder injury. But Verdura’s job, in essence, was to be gracious and charming, which he achieved in part through his talents for drawing, telling stories, and deploying a formidable intellect that won him the nickname ‘Le Petit Larousse roulant’, which roughly translates from French as ‘the walking dictionary’.
It was those very skills – the social graces that the high-born are expected to master, paired with a wealth of friends and contacts that compensated for his lack of actual wealth – which ensured his success as a jeweler, just as much as the vocational training he received from Chanel.
Verdura’s most consequential patrons were the American Broadway composer-songwriter Cole Porter and his wife Linda, who he met when the couple stopped in Palermo in 1919 while on their honeymoon. In the mid-1920s, Linda encouraged Verdura to head to Paris, and friends of hers offered to take him in.
Once there, Verdura’s cousin, Baron Ugo Oddo, arranged for him to meet Chanel, who had built up a roster of pliable European nobles by tempting them with steady paychecks. Chanel recognized the young man’s promise, and by 1934, Verdura had earned a job title to go with his inherited ones: the title of Chanel’s principal jewelry designer.
One of his earliest designs is also one of his most coveted and enduring: the Maltese cross cuff. “Verdura’s Maltese cross cuffs are iconic,” said Gina D’Onofrio, director of fine jewelry at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. “The Maltese cross motif speaks to the imagery of Verdura’s Sicilian childhood. His first pair, designed for Chanel, became her favorite pieces, and she was rarely photographed without them. Variations in hard stone and in gold have been made ever since, and Verdura collections are incomplete without them.” Heritage offered an example in December 2018 comprised of gold, black enamel, cultured pearls, blue topaz, peridot, and full-cut diamonds that sold for $22,000 plus the buyer’s premium.
Another triumph was initially designed for Cole Porter as a pair of cuff links inspired by Porter’s song Night and Day. One piece resembled the surface of the Earth, and the other depicted glittering stars in a midnight blue sky. A pair of Verdura Night and Day studs in 18K gold, diamonds, and enamel realized $3,000 plus the buyer’s premium in January 2021 at Hampton Estate Auction. Also, in April 2024, Julien’s sold the Night and Day dress set belonging to famed singer Tony Bennett (1926-2023), consisting of a pair of cuff links and four shirt studs still in their fitted Verdura case, for $15,000 plus the buyer’s premium against an estimate of $3,000-$5,000.
Verdura’s first big commission for Porter was a cigarette case to mark the 1936 Broadway premiere of his musical Red, Hot and Blue. Despite claiming that the duke’s name didn’t seem to rhyme with anything, Porter finally managed the feat in Let’s Face It!, a 1941 musical that included the song Farming, which featured the lyric:
Liz Whitney has, on her bin of manure, a
Clip designed by the Duke of Verdura.
Farming is so charming, they all say.
Verdura, ever the diplomat, does not appear to have said anything in public about Porter’s stinky little shout-out. The Sicilian also mustered enough self-control to serve the Duchess of Windsor as a client, though he was a monarchist down to the marrow of his bones. Again, the social graces acquired in childhood helped him meet his commercial goals as a grown man.
He also remained curious and interested in the world, eagerly soaking up new influences. A show of Byzantine art that he saw in 1931 clearly made a lasting impact, Exhibit A being a signed pair of 18K gold Verdura dangling earrings boasting fancy-cut amethysts and circular-cut pink tourmalines. Offered at Rago Arts and Auction Center in June 2023, the pair secured $3,000 plus the buyer’s premium.
‘Boasting’ is a key word here. Verdura did not design his treasures to be worn by shrinking violets, even those pieces that looked like genuine violets. “Verdura’s designs appeal to a demographic that appreciates unconventional and artistic design,” D’Onofrio said. “His designs are sculptural and bold, predominantly in yellow gold set with opulent color. With that, they appeal to a confident wearer that prefers to make a statement.”
Heritage had a particularly bold Verdura piece in May 2021. The duke decorated the vibrantly orange lion’s paw shell base (which he might have harvested himself, as he was known to gather shells from the beaches of Fire Island and Newport, Rhode Island) with 18K gold, diamonds, and sapphires. It achieved $45,000 plus the buyer’s premium against an estimate of $20,000-$30,000.
“The scale of the brooch, encrusted with sapphires, combined with the double entendre of ‘lion’s paw’ and shell made this piece particularly engaging,” D’Onofrio said. “Each seashell brooch was unique, but Paulette Goddard was photographed by Horst wearing a similar Lion’s paw brooch in 1941, which would have certainly raised the profile of this piece.”
Verdura designed for the white-hot stars of his day, but his creations have outlasted the fame of his clients to find favor with new generations of collectors. “Fashions come and go, but Verdura is more about timeless designs,” said April Matteini, vice president and associate director of Freeman’s Hindman’s jewelry and watches department, adding, “the pieces that we sell with great success are yellow gold, happy designs, which are perfect for day and day to night.”
Verdura’s company has outlasted him as well, surviving under the stewardship of the Landrigan family, which has released faithful reproductions and reimaginings of the duke’s designs. But vintage Verdura definitely enjoys a boost from having been so prominently adored by legendary people, even if an individual piece does not trace its provenance to one.
“I find simply the idea of the brand’s high-profile clientele is enough to boost desirability,” said Matteini. “The continuity of design, with subtle changes to be clear, is part of the draw of the brand. I rarely estimate a piece of Verdura for sale from an ‘unpopular’ collection or collection that does not have ‘the look’.”
But even those who are too young to know or care who first wore a piece of vintage Verdura jewelry are vulnerable to the spell it casts. Its magic is so powerful that it overcomes any resistance that daughters might have to donning pieces cherished by their mothers and grandmothers. “The joyous juxtaposition of color that is often found in the pieces is ageless. I often see multiple generations of women in the same family collecting Verdura,” said Matteini. “New collectors are drawn to the name and fall in love with the designs and wearability.”
