Rare Kashmir sapphire brooches linked to Irish aristocracy sell for €1.4m at Dublin auction
Two rare Kashmir sapphires sell for almost €1.4 million in Dublin today
Two very rare Kashmir sapphire brooches, kept in a sealed family vault for almost 40 years and once owned by relatives of the seventh Earl of Wicklow, sold for almost €1.4 million at a Dublin auction.
The brooches, valued at up to €250,000 each, achieved far higher prices. Lot 46 sold for €540,000 following intense phone bidding, while lot 47 sold for €550,000 at Adam’s auction house on Tuesday afternoon.
It remains unclear whether either buyer was Irish. A combined commission of 25% on the sales added €270,000, bringing the total to €1.36 million.
Bidders in the room, on the phone, and online heard the auctioneer remark: “You wait for a long time for one rare sapphire to come along then two do at the same time.”
Kashmir sapphires are prized worldwide for their distinctive colour, considered superior even to the best stones from Burma (Myanmar) or Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
The sapphires were part of 18 lots that all sold, drawn from a collection dating to the gilded age of New York high society and linked to a marriage with an Irish aristocratic family.
In the early 1900s, Benjamin Aymar Sands and his wife Amy Kirby Akin of New York gifted jewellery to their daughter May Emily Sands (29) to celebrate her 1908 marriage to the Honourable Hugh Melville Howard (25), youngest son of the sixth Earl of Wicklow.
The jewellery passed down through the family, eventually to Katharine Frances Howard of Shelton Abbey, Co Wicklow, and Ounavarra House, Co Wexford, who later became godmother to the present owner.
Claire-Laurence Mestrallet, a director and jewellery specialist at Adam’s, explained that the current owner decided to sell the collection, which also includes diamond, sapphire and emerald rings, gold coins, a diamond choker necklace, and a pearl pendant, as it was “jewellery she doesn’t intend to wear.”
Ms Mestrallet revealed the owner approached her earlier this year. Following the auction, she added: “We are super happy with the sale. The two buyers of the sapphire brooches were foreign.”
The family’s history is intertwined with both American society and Irish aristocracy.
May and Hugh’s marriage was cut short when Hugh died young of pneumonia, while May suffered psychological illness and was institutionalised. Their children, Katharine and Cecil, were raised in Ireland by their uncle, the seventh Earl of Wicklow.
Katharine remained in Ireland, buying Ounavarra House in Co Wexford, where she farmed and contributed to public life, supporting the Girl Guides, An Taisce, the Council for the Blind, the SPCA, and the National Fisheries Authority.
When Cecil died in New York in 1983, the Earldom became extinct. Katharine, who died in 1990, was buried in the family vault in Kilbride Church, Co Wicklow. As the last surviving descendant, the vault was sealed.
“This rediscovered private collection of exquisite jewellery brings to light a charmed time and place,” continued Ms Mestrallet.
The brooch sale follows Adam’s record-breaking auction last May, when a rare Kashmir sapphire ring sold for €550,000 — the highest price ever paid in Ireland for such a gem, nearly 70 times its estimate.
