Barbara Hutton
Barbara Hutton
The Woolworth heiress whose jewels embodied the romance and tragedy of mid-century American wealth
Barbara Hutton, born in New York in 1912 and died in Los Angeles in 1979, was the granddaughter of Frank W. Woolworth and inheritor of one of the largest American fortunes of the early twentieth century. Her life as the most discussed heiress of her era — seven marriages, multiple residences across Tangier, Mexico City, Honolulu, and Cuernavaca, and a public personal trajectory marked by depression and addiction — was paralleled by the assembly of one of the most important private jewellery collections of the twentieth century. The Pasha of St Petersburg, the Hutton-Mdivani Jadeite Bead Necklace, and various Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels commissions associated with her name remain landmarks in the history of high jewellery.
The Hutton-Mdivani Jadeite Bead Necklace
The single most important jewel associated with Hutton is the Hutton-Mdivani Necklace, a strand of 27 large, perfectly matched jadeite beads of the highest imperial-green quality, with a clasp by Cartier set with a ruby and diamond mount. The necklace was commissioned by Hutton's father in 1933 as a wedding gift on the occasion of her marriage to her first husband, Prince Alexis Mdivani. The beads themselves are believed to date from the eighteenth century, originally as part of a longer mandarin-court strand, and to have been re-strung by Cartier for the commission. The necklace appeared at auction at Sotheby's Hong Kong in 2014, where it sold for HK$214 million — approximately US$27.4 million at the time — making it the most expensive jadeite jewel ever sold at auction.
The Pasha of St Petersburg
Hutton owned the Pasha of St Petersburg, a 40-carat octagonal-cut diamond, mounted by Cartier as a ring. The stone, of historical Indian or Brazilian origin, had passed through the Russian imperial collection before reaching the open market in the early twentieth century. Hutton acquired it in the 1930s and wore it through her later life. The stone was sold at auction after her death and has subsequently passed through the hands of major dealers and collectors.
Tiaras and the diadem of Marie-Antoinette
Hutton owned a tiara associated with Marie-Antoinette, although the firm provenance of the piece has been the subject of scholarly debate. The diadem, of late-eighteenth-century French construction with later modifications, included pearls and diamonds in a wreath-and-spray composition. Hutton wore it to several society events in the 1930s and 1940s. The piece was sold during her lifetime and has been re-traced in subsequent collections.
Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels commissions
Hutton was a substantial client of both Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels through the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, with multiple bespoke pieces commissioned in each house's signature idiom of the period. Her Cartier commissions emphasised the Indian and Persian motifs that the firm developed under Jeanne Toussaint's direction; her Van Cleef commissions included examples of the Mystery Set technique and major coloured-stone parures.
Dispersal and legacy
Hutton's financial fortunes declined sharply through the 1960s and 1970s, partly through generosity to her seven husbands — divorce settlements were substantial and repeated — and partly through generally improvident management. Significant portions of her jewellery collection were sold during her lifetime to fund continuing expenditure. The remainder was dispersed after her death in 1979.
The auction record built around her name has remained durably strong. Pieces with documented Hutton provenance trade at substantial premium when the documentation links specifically to her ownership rather than to a generic Hutton-period attribution. The Hutton-Mdivani Necklace, in particular, is one of the most celebrated jadeite jewels in trade history.
Personal context
Hutton's personal life — the seven marriages, the strained relationship with her son Lance Reventlow, the long struggle with depression and substance dependence — has tended to dominate popular accounts of her at the expense of attention to her connoisseurship. She was, in fact, a knowledgeable and engaged collector, with particular sensitivity to jadeite, to coloured stones, and to the historical pieces that her wealth allowed her to acquire. Her jewellery legacy is deeper than the celebrity-and-tragedy framing usually applied to her.
In the trade
For collectors, Hutton-provenance pieces are among the most coveted of mid-twentieth-century American provenance attributions, alongside the comparable lots from the Duchess of Windsor, Elizabeth Taylor, and Doris Duke estates. Documented Hutton lots support multi-fold premiums over comparable un-provenanced material, and the auction houses with strongest jewellery practice — Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams — pursue Hutton material aggressively when it appears.