Why Elizabeth Taylor’s Jewelry Collection Was Sold – And Where It Is Now HT
Elizabeth Taylor owned one of the most valuable jewelry collections in history, but after her death, something unexpected happened. It didn’t stay in private hands. It was sold. These weren’t just diamonds. They were legendary pieces tied to love, fame, and fortune. But once they left her possession, they were scattered across the world.
So, why was her collection sold, and where are those jewels today? Number 10. The Edith Head gold necklace. Edith Head was the most decorated costume designer in Hollywood history, winning eight Academy Awards, a record no designer has matched before or since. She dressed Taylor across multiple films, and in doing so, became one of the defining creative relationships of Taylor’s career.
This necklace was a personal gift from Head to Taylor, which placed it in a different category from everything else in the collection. The necklace is gold hung in ivory theater tokens. It is not a piece that announces itself with carats or provenance. It is personal.
It came from one woman to another, from a designer to the actress she dressed, as a token of a working relationship that produced some of the most iconic images in 20th century cinema. Taylor held onto it for decades. In a collection that included a pearl owned by Spanish kings and a diamond from the richest man in the world, she kept a gold necklace with ivory tokens from her costume designer.
That says something about how Taylor valued the people in her life, not just the grand romantic gestures, but the sustained creative partnerships that defined her work. When Christie’s sold the collection in November 2011, the Edith Head necklace sold for $314,500 to a private collector whose identity was never disclosed.
That price, measured against the other lots in the sale, is modest. Against the actual relationship it represented, it is harder to quantify. It is now privately owned and has not appeared publicly since the sale. A piece that connected two of the most significant women in 20th century Hollywood, one behind the camera and one in front of it, is sitting in a collection somewhere with no public access.
Head dressed Taylor. Taylor kept the gift for life. Whoever owns it now likely understands neither of those women the way the necklace itself does. Number nine. The ping pong diamond rings. This is the story that cuts through everything else in the collection, not because of the price, because of what it was.
Three small diamond rings, not extraordinary by the standards of the other pieces in Taylor’s collection. No historic provenance, no Mughal emperors, no Spanish royalty. Just three modest diamond rings that Elizabeth Taylor won from Richard Burton in a game of ping pong. He bet them. She beat him. He paid up. That’s the entire story, and Christie’s sold them for $962,500.
Think about what that number represents. The La Peregrina had five centuries of royal history. The Krupp diamond weighed 33.19 carats. The Taj Mahal pendant survived the Mughal Empire. Those prices made sense against that scale of provenance. But three small rings won in a ping pong game between two people in love sold for nearly a million dollars because of who those two people were.
Taylor kept them for decades, through the marriages, the divorces, the reconciliation, the second divorce, all of it. She held onto rings she won in a game, which tells you something about how she thought about objects and memory. To her, the story attached to a piece was as real as the stone itself. When Christie’s cataloged the collection in 2011, they named the rings with a nickname, the ping pong diamonds.
That name alone guaranteed attention. They sold to a private collector whose identity was never disclosed for a price that would have been unimaginable for three rings of that scale without the story behind them. They are now in a private collection, unseen. Three small diamonds that survived because two extraordinarily famous people played a game, and one of them was competitive enough to keep her winnings for the rest of her life.
Number eight. The Prince of Wales brooch. This brooch arrived in Elizabeth Taylor’s collection through one of the most scandalous backstories in 20th century history. It originally belonged to Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee for whom King Edward the VIII abdicated the British throne in 1936. Edward gave up the crown, his country, and his future as monarch to marry her.
The jewelry he gave Wallis over the course of their life together was extraordinary in scale and emotional weight, and this brooch was part of that collection. The Prince of Wales brooch features the three ostrich feathers that form the emblem of the Prince of Wales, set entirely in diamonds.
It is a piece of direct royal symbolism. The kind of object that was never supposed to leave that world. Edward had it made for Wallis as a personal token connecting her to the title and the identity he had surrendered. How it traveled from Wallis Simpson’s collection to Elizabeth Taylor’s hands is part of the longer story of how Taylor assembled pieces with complicated histories.
She was drawn to objects that carried weight beyond their materials. When Christie’s sold the collection in November 2011, the brooch went to an anonymous private buyer for $1.3 million. No name, no institution, no public record of its destination. That anonymity is particularly striking for this piece, a brooch made from the symbol of a prince who gave up everything, given to the woman he chose instead of the crown, passed through one of Hollywood’s most famous collections, and then disappeared into a private sale
with no public trace. Three owners, each defined by extraordinary circumstances. Wallis Simpson wore it as a declaration. Taylor wore it as a collector who understood its charge. Whoever owns it now has said nothing publicly at all. Number seven. Bulgari sapphire and diamond sautoir. Bulgari made this necklace at the height of their 1960s and 1970s design ambition.
A sautoir is a long chain necklace designed to hang low on the body rather than sit at the throat. This one was built around a 50-carat sapphire, a stone of that size being extraordinary on its own before the surrounding diamonds are even considered. The overall design drew from Art Deco geometry, long, structured, and architectural in the way Bulgari consistently executed during that era.
Burton bought it for Taylor during the Roman years, the period when their relationship was at its most intense, and their spending reflected that intensity. The Bulgari boutique on Via Condotti in Rome became almost a regular stop. Taylor once said that the only Italian she needed was the word Bulgari.
Burton responded to that by continuing to prove her right. The sautoir appeared at significant events throughout the 1970s. A 50-carat sapphire hanging from a long diamond chain on Elizabeth Taylor was not a subtle choice, and Taylor never made subtle choices when she had the option of making extraordinary ones.
When Christie’s sold the collection in November 2011, Bulgari paid $5.9 million to bring it back. It joined the Bulgari Heritage Collection in Rome, alongside the emerald brooch and the emerald waterfall necklace that Bulgari also reacquired at the same sale. The company spent a combined significant sum reclaiming three major Taylor pieces in a single auction, which says something deliberate about their intentions.
The sapphire sautoir is now part of Bulgari’s institutional archive, used in global exhibitions that trace the house’s creative history. It is one of the pieces Bulgari considers central to their identity as a design house. Burton bought it as a love letter. Bulgari bought it back as a piece of their own legacy. Number six.
The Mike Todd diamond tiara. Mike Todd was Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband, and by most accounts, the love of her life before Burton arrived. They married in 1957, and Todd’s approach to romance was operatic. He didn’t give small gifts. When he wanted to mark an occasion, he marked it completely. The diamond tiara he gave Taylor was antique, meaning it came with its own history before it ever reached her.
Old European cut diamonds set in a design from an earlier era, the kind of piece that carries the weight of whoever owned it before. Todd gave it to her around the time of their marriage, and Taylor wore it to the 1957 Academy Awards. The photographs from that night are among the most reproduced images as of her early Hollywood years.
Todd died in a plane crash in March 1958, less than a year after their wedding. He was 48 years old. Taylor described his death as the defining loss of her life. She kept the tiara through every subsequent marriage, every chapter, every reinvention. It stayed with her for more than 50 years after he died.
When Christie’s sold the collection in November 2011, the tiara went for $4.2 million to an anonymous bidder. No name, no institution, no public record of where it went. It passed to a private collector and has not appeared publicly since. That anonymity feels particularly stark for this piece. The La Peregrina had centuries of royal provenance.
The Krupp diamond went to a named corporation. But the tiara from the husband Taylor called Irreplaceable went to someone whose identity has never been disclosed. And it has been invisible ever since. Todd gave it to her at the peak of their brief marriage. It outlasted him by 53 years. Now, it is somewhere no one outside the buyer’s circle will ever see it.
Number five. Bulgari emerald and diamond necklace. This necklace has a nickname that tells you everything about what it looks like. Taylor called it the frozen waterfall. Bulgari made it at the peak of their 1960s design power. And it shows. Emeralds and diamonds cascade down the neckline in graduated layers.
Each stone feeding into the next, built to move with the body and catch light at every angle. It is an aggressive piece of jewelry in the best possible sense. Burton bought it for Taylor during the years they spent in Rome filming Cleopatra. Those years produced some of the most significant pieces in her entire collection.
The Via Condotti Bulgari boutique became a regular stop. And Burton understood quickly that walking Taylor through those doors was one of the more effective expressions of love available to him. The emerald necklace was one of the results. Taylor wore it at major events throughout the 1960s and 1970s. It appeared in photographs that circulated globally.
By the time Christie’s cataloged the collection in 2011, it was one of the most recognizable pieces in the entire sale. Bulgari paid $6.1 million to get it back. Like the emerald and diamond brooch they also repurchased at the same auction, this piece went directly into the Bulgari heritage collection in Rome.
Unlike the brooch, which sits primarily in archives, this necklace has been used in global exhibitions. Bulgari has taken it to major cultural events and retrospectives as part of their effort to document the house’s history through its most significant surviving pieces. That means this one is occasionally visible.
Not for sale, not in a private safe, but traveling as part of deliberate institutional effort to show what Bulgari was capable of at its best. Taylor wore it to be seen. Bulgari is honoring that in the only way left available to them. Number four. Bulgari emerald and diamond brooch. Richard Burton gave Elizabeth Taylor this brooch during their engagement.
It came from Bulgari, the Roman jewelry house that became deeply intertwined with Taylor’s personal story. During the filming of Cleopatra in Rome in the early 1960s, Burton discovered that Taylor responded to Bulgari the way most people respond to nothing else in their lives. He started taking her to the Via Condotti boutique.
She called Bulgari her favorite word in Italian. The brooch itself is an emerald and diamond piece, the kind of object Bulgari was producing at the height of their creative power. Bold colored stones, precise diamond settings, designed to be seen from across a room. Burton gave it to her as an engagement gift, which meant it carried the specific weight of that moment.
The beginning of one of the most documented and turbulent relationships in 20th century public life. When Christie’s sold the collection in November 2011, Bulgari bought it back. They paid $6.6 million and placed it in their heritage collection held in their private archives in Rome. It was a deliberate act of reclamation.
Bulgari has spent decades building an archive of historically significant pieces that passed through their house, and this brooch connected two of the most recognizable names in that history. It is not available for public purchase. It is not on rotating display in any museum. It lives in Rome in a private archive alongside other pieces the company has methodically reacquired.
There is something fitting about that. Burton bought it in Rome during one of the most romantic and chaotic periods of both their lives. It went to New York, lived with Taylor for decades, was sold after her death, and returned to the city where it started. Bulgari didn’t just buy a brooch, they bought back a piece of their own story.
Number three. The Elizabeth Taylor diamond ring. Richard Burton bought this diamond in 1968 at a Parke-Bernet auction in New York. He paid $305,000 for it, which was a record price for a jewel sold at auction at that time. The stone is 33.19 carats, colorless, and Asscher cut, a shape that creates a hall of mirrors effect inside the diamond when light hits it.
It was originally known as the Krupp diamond, named after the German industrial family that previously owned it. Taylor wore it on her finger like it was nothing. When people asked her about it, she would hold out her hand and let them look. She once said that a diamond that size on a finger like hers proved that anyone could wear anything if they wore it with enough confidence.
When Christie’s cataloged the collection after her death in March 2011, the stone was renamed the Elizabeth Taylor diamond. It sold at the November 2011 auction for $8.8 million to E-Land Group, a South Korean retail conglomerate. They purchased it for their corporate collection. That trajectory is worth sitting with for a moment.
A stone that Burton bought for $305,000 sold 43 years later for nearly $8.8 million. And the buyer was not a private individual or a museum. It was a corporation, acquired as a corporate asset. The diamond is currently held within E-Land’s collection in South Korea. It does not appear regularly in public exhibitions.
A stone that spent years on one of the most recognized hands in Hollywood now lives inside a corporate portfolio on the other side of the world. Burton called it the most perfect diamond he had ever seen. Taylor wore it for decades. It is now a line item in a retail conglomerate’s asset register. That is either a strange ending or simply proof that extraordinary objects outlive the stories we attach to them.
Number two. The Taj Mahal diamond. The Taj Mahal diamond is not just a diamond. It is a 17th century Mughal pendant engraved in Persian with an inscription that translates to a declaration of love. It was made in the era of the Mughal emperors, the same civilization that built the actual Taj Mahal. The stone and its engraving survived four centuries before Richard Burton bought it and gave it to Elizabeth Taylor on her 40th birthday in 1972.
He didn’t wrap it. He commissioned Cartier to hang it on a ruby and diamond necklace and presented it to her as a birthday gift. Taylor wore it regularly throughout the 1970s. A 400-year-old Mughal love token on a Hollywood actress’s neck at film premieres. That combination was pure Taylor. When Christie’s sold the collection in November 2011, the Taj Mahal diamond went for $8.8 million.
Then things got complicated. The sale was subsequently canceled due to a dispute over provenance. Questions arose about the stone’s ownership history and whether the sale could legally proceed as originally completed. The details of that dispute have never been fully resolved in public. What is known is that the piece remains in private hands.
It did not go to a museum. It did not return to auction. It exists somewhere in a private collection. Its legal and ownership status having passed through a disputed transaction that Christie’s and the involved parties never fully aired publicly. A stone engraved with a 17th century Persian love inscription, given as a birthday gift by one of the most famous couples in Hollywood history, sold for nearly $9 million and then caught in a legal dispute that kept it out of public view entirely.
It has not surfaced since. For a piece with that much history attached to it, the current silence is remarkable. Number one. The La Peregrina pearl. The La Peregrina pearl has one of the most remarkable travel histories of any object in the world. It was discovered in the Gulf of Panama in the 1500s by an enslaved African man who earned his freedom as a reward.
From there it passed to the Spanish crown, was worn by Mary I of England, and spent centuries moving through the hands of European royalty. It survived empires, revolutions, and 400 years of history before Richard Burton spotted it at auction in 1969. He paid $37,000 for it as a Valentine’s Day gift for Elizabeth Taylor.
Taylor loved it obsessively. She wore it constantly, almost losing it once when one of her Pekingese puppies started chewing on it in a hotel room. She had Cartier redesign the setting, surrounding it with rubies, diamonds, and more pearls, turning an already historic object into something entirely her own.
When Christie’s sold the collection in November 2011, the La Peregrina was the centerpiece. It sold for $11.8 million to an anonymous buyer widely rumored to be based in Asia. That figure was extraordinary on its own, but consider what it represented. A $37,000 purchase had appreciated to nearly $12 million in 42 years, and that’s before accounting for what the pearl was worth before Burton ever touched it.
Since the sale, it has not been seen publicly. A pearl that spent four centuries being worn by queens and empresses, that survived the collapse of the Spanish Empire and sat around Elizabeth Taylor’s neck at some of the most photographed events in 20th century Hollywood is now sitting in a private collection that the public cannot access.
The pearl outlasted every person who ever owned it. Right now, it is simply waiting for whoever comes next. If you loved this look inside the world’s most glamorous vault, please like the video and share it with your friends. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a story behind the world’s most iconic diamonds and the people who wore them.
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