A spectacular unicorn brooch once owned by one of Queen Elizabeth II’s longest-serving ladies-in-waiting is heading to auction in London with an estimate of up to 30,000 pounds. The jewel belonged to Virginia Fortune Ryan Ogilvy, Dowager Countess of Airlie, who served the late Queen as a Lady of the Bedchamber for almost five decades.
Its royal provenance alone would make the piece fascinating to collectors, but the story reaches back much further, to Lady Airlie’s childhood friendship with one of the 20th century’s most celebrated jewelry designers. The Verdura unicorn brooch is due to be offered by Elmwood’s Auctioneers in London on August 19, with an estimate of 20,000 to 30,000 pounds.
Designed by the legendary jeweler Fulco di Verdura, the brooch depicts the head of a unicorn emerging from a circular cabochon turquoise crown. Its fantastical detailing includes a pear-shaped diamond fringe, a diamond-set horn and a brilliant-cut diamond flower held in the creature’s mouth, a study in the imaginative style that made the designer’s name.
The personal thread is what sets the jewel apart. As a girl, Lady Airlie would visit Verdura on her way home from school, a rare chance to watch one of the great designers of the century at work. Born in Sicily in 1898, Verdura worked alongside Coco Chanel in Paris in the 1920s before establishing his own house in New York in 1939, drawing admirers that included the Duchess of Windsor, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Elizabeth Taylor.
His jewels were renowned for their inventive use of color, unusual materials and motifs drawn from the natural and fantastical worlds, and the unicorn became a recurring design, reportedly inspired not by traditional heraldry but by folk carvings found on early American carousels. “This is an exceptional Verdura jewel, but what makes it particularly fascinating is the very personal story behind it,” the auction house said, framing a piece whose worth lies as much in its history as in its diamonds.
