Elizabeth Taylor’s Love Affair With Jewelry Started as an Infant

What To Know

Elizabeth Taylor loved jewelry from childhood, receiving iconic pieces from husbands like Richard Burton.
Her collection was prized for its history and personal meaning, not just its size or value.
After her death, it was sold for $115.9 million at Christie’s.

This article originally ran in the April 2017 Elizabeth Taylor Issue of ReMIND Magazine. You can purchase it at the link below.

If, as Marilyn Monroe famously sang, diamonds are a girl’s best friend, Elizabeth Taylor possessed one of the world’s richest collections of personal pals … and a relationship with them that dated to her cradle.

“My mother says I didn’t open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did,” the actress famously quipped, “the first thing I saw was an engagement ring. I was hooked.”

Appropriately enough, hotel chain heir and first husband Conrad Hilton Jr. accompanied his marriage proposal with a 4-carat, $10,000 ring of Liz’s own. The shine wore off those nuptials within months, but by early 1957, Mike Todd had expressed his devotion in an engagement band consisting of 29 7/8 carats (he thought saying 30 “would have been vulgar,” according to Taylor). Along the way, Todd added an antique tiara for the woman he called “my queen” and a stunning diamond and ruby set that he draped around her neck as she swam in their pool.

British-born actress Elizabeth Taylor shows off the 33.19 carat diamond ring given to her by husband Richard Burton

Express Newspapers/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Like Todd, fifth husband Richard Burton had a penchant for showering his bride with bling for any or even no occasion. A history buff, the actor delighted in finding pieces that were both aesthetically pleasing and contained a story, and contributed the most to Taylor’s collection over the years: notably, the astounding 33.19-carat Krupp diamond in 1968, and, upon their remarriage in Botswana, a set of emeralds that had belonged to the Grand Duchess of Russia. And, of course, there was that 69-carat jewel, famously known as the Taylor-Burton diamond, which is now owned by a private collector. Occasionally, Elizabeth stood out not just for what she wore, but also how she adorned her rich, dark locks with strands of pearls or a brooch, in addition to Todd’s tiara.

François Curiel, of Christie’s, was impressed not just by the size and variety of the actress’ collection, which amounted to “trays and trays,” but also by its quality and the owner’s knowledge of it. Each piece held personal meaning. Nine months after she died in 2011, the gems brought in a record-breaking $115.9 million at a Christie’s auction in New York, but it could be argued that their greatest value lay in her memories.

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 01: Jewelry owned by Elizabeth Taylor on display at "The Collection Of Elizabeth Taylor" auction press preview at Christie's on December 1, 2011 in New York City.

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

“I never, never thought of my jewelry as trophies,” she wrote in her 2002 memoir, My Love Affair With Jewelry. “I’m here to take care of them and to love them. When I die, and they go off to auction, I hope whoever buys them gives them a really good home.”

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