Queen Nazli’s Van Cleef & Arpels Diamond Necklace

Today marks the Anniversary of the Death of Queen Nazli of Egypt, who died on this day in 1978. To mark the Anniversary, we are taking a look at one of her most iconic jewels, her Van Cleef & Arpels Diamond Necklace.

In 1939, Queen Mother Nazli commissioned a new Diamond Parure from Van Cleef & Arpels to celebrate the Wedding of her daughter, Princess Fawzia of Egypt, to the Shah of Iran, when she also ordered another Van Cleef & Arpels Parure for her daughter. The Parure included the massive Tiara and this magnificent Bib Necklace, with nearly 220 carats of diamonds, in the Art Deco style.

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Queen Nazli wore her Van Cleef & Arpels Diamond frequently after she received it, starting from the Shah of Iran and Princess Fawzia’s Wedding Banquet in 1939, and the Parure remained with her for decades after being exiled by her son King Farouk, until she made penniless by her son-in-law, when Queen Nazli was forced to Auction much of her jewellery collection at Sotheby’s Parke Bernet in 1975.

The necklace sold to a private collector for $140,000 and wasn’t seen again till 2015 when it came up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York, where it was bought by Van Cleef & Arpels for $4.3 million, and presented it as part of its Milan exhibition, Time, Nature & Love. Queen Nazli’s Van Cleef & Arpels Diamond Necklace was also worn by her great-granddaughter, Amina El-Demirdash, on the cover of Vogue Arabia last year.

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4 thoughts on “Queen Nazli’s Van Cleef & Arpels Diamond Necklace

  1. Wow! What a magnificent necklace! It’s huge, but it somehow avoids looking like a breastplate like the Greville necklaces do. It is very compact but mighty and I can see why it fetched such a huge amount of money at auction. I guess Van Cleef and Arpels knew what they were buying since they made it in the first place. Absolutely divine!

  2. Beware of whom you sell your children to. Make sure you get paste copies made and secrete the genuine ones off shore. Forget them but instructions to surface only after the sons in law dies and daughters live in Switzland.

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