Queen Elizabeth II, the monarch who reigned the longest in Britain, left a legacy that would endure for centuries. Her unwavering dedication to her country defined her historic reign of more than 70 years, and when she died in September 2022, millions mourned her loss. With an immense fortune at her disposal, her personal jewelry collection consisted of some 300 pieces, including 14 tiaras, 34 pairs of earrings, 98 brooches, 46 necklaces, 37 bracelets, five pendants, 15 rings, and 14 watches.
Among all those valuable pieces, one of the most spectacular was the Nizam of Hyderabad‘s necklace. With an estimated value of 76 million euros, it is one of the most expensive jewels in the British royal family and also one of the most iconic. To trace its origin, we must go back to July 9, 1947. On that day, the engagement of Princess Elizabeth to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten was announced. In the months following the happy news, wedding gifts began arriving at an ever-increasing pace.
The gifts spanned the full spectrum of the royal couple’s needs, from the most practical to the most luxurious. Barely two years had passed since the end of World War II, and the princess received numerous pairs of stockings, silverware, crockery, as well as 500 boxes of pineapples from Australia. The wedding gifts were displayed to the public at St. James’s Palace, among them the jewels that had been gifted to the princess by her parents and her grandmother, Queen Mary. Among all of them, the necklace and the tiara given to her by the Nizam of Hyderabad drew the greatest sighs of admiration.
The Nizam Osman Ali Khan was the seventh and last ruler of Hyderabad, in British India. Time magazine named him the richest man in the world in 1937, and contemporary estimates of his fortune would amount to €200 billion. He possessed a fleet of Rolls-Royces, and in his main palace there were 38 people employed just to dust the lamps. He owned one of the most exquisite jewelry collections in the world, but lived a simple life. After his death in 1967, his funeral procession was one of the grandest ever held in India.
The Nizam of Hyderabad and His Fabulous Gift
In 1947, the Nizam had given Cartier precise instructions for his wedding gift to be chosen by Princess Elizabeth herself, from his stock in London. The future bride selected a diamond tiara with a floral design and a necklace with a central pendant. Both pieces were set with diamonds and mounted on platinum. Elizabeth II wore the tiara during the early years of her marriage, but in 1973 the piece was dismantled and the diamonds were used for the ruby-and-diamond tiara created by Garrard.
The necklace, on the other hand, remains intact nine decades later. It is composed of a central section with pavé diamonds of brilliant cut and curved scrolls, flanked on both sides by a smaller section with scrolls and includes thirteen emerald-cut diamonds. From the center hangs a pear-shaped diamond pendant surrounded by brilliant-cut diamonds. The central double pendant is detachable and a row of 38 diamonds forms the neckband, with an oval diamond clasp.
The Nizam of Hyderabad’s necklace.
The necklace was made in 1935 and subsequently sold, but it returned to Cartier’s stock in 1937 and was redesigned until it reached its current form. After marrying, the princess Elizabeth frequently wore the jewelry she had received as wedding gifts, since her collection was not yet very extensive. In 1951, the young couple began a 16,000-kilometer tour of Canada and the United States, which included a dinner with President Truman and his wife in which the future queen wore the Nizam of Hyderabad necklace.
Throughout the 1950s, Queen Elizabeth II would wear the necklace in numerous official photographs and portraits. After her coronation in 1953, the royal couple undertook a seven-month tour of the Commonwealth, where the jewel shone on several occasions. It was also the piece chosen for her portrait in the Royal Family Order, instituted by King George IV in 1820, and which was a personal gift from the monarch to the women of her family.
A Tradition Continued by Kate Middleton
In its later years, Queen Elizabeth II wore the necklace less frequently, but it was chosen for the photo series taken at Buckingham Palace by Annie Leibovitz in May 2007. During the summer of that same year, thousands of visitors could view it in the Buckingham Palace exhibition also held to celebrate the couple’s Diamond Wedding. There, the queen’s wedding dress and her most sumptuous wedding gifts were on display, and the State Rooms where the photographs were taken and the wedding banquet was held were opened to the public.
Only one of Elizabeth II’s relatives has publicly worn the precious Nizam of Hyderabad necklace. In 2014, Kate Middleton attended a charity gala at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and her appearance prompted gasps of astonishment among those present. Alongside her blue silk evening gown by Jenny Packham, the valuable piece stood out at her neck, loaned for one night by her husband’s grandmother.
