Lady Hesketh’s Cartier Aquamarine Tiara

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of the Death of Christian, the 2nd Baroness Hesketh, who passed away on this day in 2006! The politician and educationist who was the chatelaine of the spectacular Easton Neston House, Lady Hesketh had several magnificent jewels including this iconic Cartier Aquamarine Tiara!

But first, let’s learn about Lady Hesketh! The only daughter of Sir John McEwen, 1st Baronet and Brigid Mary Lindley, she grew up at Marchmont House and and Bardrochatm and was educated at St Mary’s School in Ascot. In 1949, she married Frederick Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Baron Hesketh and had three sons before his early death in 1955, which left her a widow at 25 in charge of the Family Seat of Easton Neston. In addition to being the chairman of Daventry Conservative Association, a County Councillor for Northamptonshire, and Daventry District Councillor, the Dowager Lady Hesketh was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for the county of Northamptonshire and also served as High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1981. She also wrote several works of history and obtained a PhD from King’s College London, alongside being a rugby correspondent of The Spectator.

Kisty Hesketh always treated Easton Neston as an embassy, with the result that her guests never knew what to expect: a duke might find himself next to an anarchistic poet; an atheistic scientist next to the American ambassador; a socialist councillor next to a foreign princess or a Hollywood heart-throb. Kisty Hesketh presided, a dazzling presence (“very witty and clever”, as Evelyn Waugh described her in his diary), raising the conversational game, delighting in dispute.

The magnificent Belle Epoque Aquamarine and Diamond Tiara, circa 1910, is designed as a series of graduated oval aquamarine clusters set with oval- and hexagonal-shaped aquamarines, interspersed with sprays of diamond myrtle leaves, within millegrain borders of circular-, single- and rose-cut diamonds.

Lady Hesketh was most notably pictured wearing the Cartier Aquamarine Tiara for a Ball held by the Duke and Duchess of Bedford and the the Countess Cadogan at Woburn Abbey in 1957.

In the 1980s, the Cartier Aquamarine Tiara was worn by the 3rd Baroness Hesketh for a Ball.

Following the death of the 2nd Baroness in 2006, which came the year after the sale of Easton Neston, several of her jewels were sold off in the Sotheby’s ‘Noble Jewels’ Sale in Geneva in May 2007. Among the jewels, the Cartier Aquamarine Tiara sold for 110,400 CHF after an original estimate of 72,000 – 120,000 CHF.

Now, Lady Hesketh’s Cartier Aquamarine Tiara belongs to the Cartier Collection and has been displayed around the world, most recently in the Cartier Exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London last year.