In the run up to the 140th anniversary of the birth of American heiress Gladys Vanderbilt, take a closer look at her magnificent diamond Cartier tiara, which sold last year at auction. Get all the details below.
In 1908, Gladys Vanderbilt (the elegant cousin of Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married the British Duke of Marlborough) wed the Hungarian Count László Széchényi in a high-profile event at the Vanderbilt mansion in New York.
The crowd of onlookers, reporters and photographers who gathered to steal a glance at the bride and her dashing groom grew so large, the police had to be called out, and a decoy horse-drawn carriage was deployed to divert the crowd’s attention as the newlywed couple were spirited away from the celebration in a limousine.
Born into the renowned and influential Vanderbilt family on August 27th, 1886, Gladys was the seventh and youngest child of wealthy businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Alice Claypool Gwynne. As befits such a high-profile socialite and heiress, the wedding gifts from her relatives included a treasure trove of extravagant jewels, including diamond chains, ropes of pearls, rings and pendants.
Her mother Alice presented her with one of the most magnificent Gilded Age gifts of all: an opulent Cartier tiara set with interchangeable pear-cut amethysts and diamonds and sprays of diamond lily motifs which could also be detached and worn as brooches. Gladys Vanderbilt notably wore the headpiece to the Coronation of Emperor Charles and Empress Zita of Austria in 1916.
The tiara was later dismantled but one of its floral brooches – alongside 11 other luxurious Vanderbilt jewels – sold for CHF 451,500 ($564,664), over five times its low pre-sale estimate of CHF 80,000 ($100,000) at Phillips auction house in November 2025.
The spectacular sale was led by ‘The Vanderbilt Sapphire’, a sugarloaf Kashmir sapphire and diamond brooch weighing over 42 carats, mounted by Tiffany & Co, which had a pre-sale estimate of CHF 800,000 – 1,200,000 ($1 million – 1.5 million).
Also a wedding gift from Alice, the piece boasts a delicate openwork design embellished with old-cut diamonds and represents the pinnacle of Belle Époque refinement, embodying the era’s supreme artistic and social ambitions. It ended up selling for CHF 2,876,000 ($3,570,841).
The entire sale ended up netting CHF $3.4 million ($4.2 million) by the time the final gavel came down.
Like this? Read more about the Phillips auction of the Vanderbilt family jewellery
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