Marlene Dietrich’s Legendary Van Cleef & Arpels Ruby and Diamond Bracelet Heading to Auction (Exclusive)

A ruby-and-diamond bracelet which legendary star Marlene Dietrich commissioned from Van Cleef & Arpels in 1937 and later wore to the Academy Awards in 1951 is headed to the public sale block. Will probably be supplied as a part of Christie’s upcoming June 7 sale in New York, titled “The Magnificent Jewels of Anne Eisenhower.”

Eisenhower — an inside designer who died final 12 months and was a granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower — was additionally privately a collector of many items of outstanding jewellery, from a Panthère de Cartier brooch to a Tiffany and Co. Artwork Deco diamond bracelet on which a rose is depicted by rubies and emeralds. Each are included within the public sale, which has a complete of 31 heaps.

But it surely’s Dietrich’s bracelet, which Eisenhower anonymously bought at public sale in 1992, that’s the undisputed star of the sale in addition to the lot with the very best estimate — $2.5 million to $4.5 million.

“This bracelet is known in a number of methods,” says Claibourne Poindexter, VP and jewellery specialist at Christie’s. “It was one among [Dietrich’s] favourite items of bijou. It’s daring. It’s very massive in scale and has a beautiful curvature. She wore it so fantastically in Stage Fright, an Alfred Hitchcock movie from 1950, and also you get this appreciation for a way sculptural the design is. It doesn’t actually match into any interval. It’s not Artwork Deco jewellery. It’s not retro jewellery. It’s simply form of excessive glamour. It truly is it’s personal murals.”

Maybe what led to such a singular creation is the curious genesis of its materials. In keeping with Dietrich’s grandson Peter Riva (who spoke to The New York Times on the time of the bracelet’s sale in 1992), it was All Quiet on the Western Entrance writer Erich Maria Remarque, a lover of Dietrich’s, who advised to the star that “she take all her bits of bijou and make them into one fabulous piece. It’s made up of diamond earrings, a diamond necklace, matching ruby bracelet and earrings, a few pins, all advised 30 issues.”

The ensuing piece — designed by Louis Arpels and often called a Jarretière bracelet (from the French phrase for garter) — consists of cushion-shaped Burmese rubies (which have by no means been heated) and spherical, single, rectangular and baguette-cut diamonds, all set in platinum. It’s accompanied by a Mark Cross leather-based case bearing the initials M.D. When the bracelet bought in 1992, it went for $990,000, greater than double the pre-sale estimate of $300,000 to $400,000.

The New York Instances has described Dietrich’s Jarretiere piece as a “modernist platinum cuff” that includes “an exaggerated, asymmetrical loop coated in cushion-cut rubies set atop twin buckle-like bands of … diamonds.” Throughout the jewellery world, the bracelet is iconic sufficient that Van Cleef & Arpels, which contains a look at the piece on its website, went as far as to create and launch a new bracelet inspired by the original in 2021.

All through her lifetime, Dietrich had a love for jewels, particularly statement-making ones. Some had been gifted to her by the lads in her life, akin to Maurice Chevalier, Josef von Sternberg and Jean Gabin.

Different baubles, akin to a collection of emeralds, had origins that even her daughter, Maria Riva, couldn’t surmise. As Riva wrote in Marlene Dietrich, her 1992 biography of her mom, of the emeralds, “They had been “mysterious” jewels. Their acquired origin unknown. … Whereas they had been a part of our life, they reigned chic. They turned like my youthful sisters — I had cost of them. Their security and well-being had been my accountability. They lived in a brown leather-based case, the scale of my mom’s gramophone and about as heavy. Each bit was perfection.”

However towards the tip of her life, these emeralds had been now not in her possession, nor had been a lot of the jewels she had so cherished. Peter Riva, in his interview with the Times, mentioned that his grandmother’s Jarretière bracelet “was the one piece of bijou that she stored. She additionally beloved her emeralds, however she misplaced them, in all probability to the I.R.S. for again taxes. She held on to the ruby bracelet by means of good and unhealthy instances.”

Since 1992, Dietrich’s bracelet has had just one different proprietor, Eisenhower. Inside months, it is going to seemingly have a 3rd.

“From Marlene Dietrich to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Anne Eisenhower Assortment traces the historical past of the final century by means of a single collector’s good ardour for wonderful jewels,” mentioned Christie’s Americas chairman Marc Porter in an announcement. “Anne Eisenhower had a eager eye for the best examples of the jeweler’s artwork, and her assortment tells fascinating and interwoven tales of patrons and collectors.”

Highlights from “The Magnificent Jewels of Anne Eisenhower” sale might be previewed on the Christie’s Los Angeles gallery in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, March 21. Extra showings might be held in Paris, Geneva and Hong Kong earlier than the June 7 public sale.

Scroll on for extra pictures of bijou items from the upcoming public sale: