Take a look inside the world's greatest private jewelry collection:
hah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, lived every part of life in excess—exquisite, extravagant excess. In the early 17th century, he ruled a kingdom stretching across what is now India and Pakistan from the, a seat encrusted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and a 50-carat, pear-shaped pearl. He fathered more than a dozen children and took 11 wives. When his most beloved bride, Mumtaz Mahal, died in 1631, he commissioned a white-marble mausoleum for her.
The cherub's bust on the Shah Jahan Dagger was an unusual choice, says William Robinson, Christie's head of Islamic art. The Mughal craftsmen who made it normally would've followed Islam's strict prohibition of graven images.
Many other pieces are the exact opposite. There is a chess set whose pieces are decorated with emeralds and rubies; the 10.5-carat Pink Golconda Diamond, drawn from the ancient mines of eastern India; and the Arcot II diamond, a 17.2-carat stone given to Britain’s Queen Charlotte in 1777 by the Nawab of Arcot.
The sale is expected to bring tens of millions of dollars, and it may actually go into nine figures, possibly taking a run at becoming the largest jewelry sale of all time. Kadakia could only describe the auction’s massive projected estimate one way. “Like Elizabeth Taylor’s,” he says.
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