Diamond and Onyx Necklace

For more information on the provenance of this lot, please visit sothebys.com.

Sotheby's sold a necklace of identical design signed Cartier from the same family in Magnificent Jewels, New York, December 5, 2023, Lot 68. That necklace is believed to be the companion piece to the one offered here; the two elements may have originally formed a single, longer necklace.

Mary Ethel Weinmann was born in Paris in 1929, the youngest daughter of Count and Countess Andre de Limur (née Ethel de Limur who was the granddaughter of Charles Crocker). Mary grew up in Paris and moved to Washington D.C. in 1939 when her father was at the French Embassy. She completed professional training at Parsons School of Design in New York, and in 1955 she married Neil Carothers III. She raised two sons, divorced, and was remarried to Eric Weinmann in 1974. Mary passed away on November 23, 2018 at her residence in Washington D.C., Mary was a Dame of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem; a board member of the Alliance Francaise of Washington D.C., Chairman of the Garden Committee of the Blair House Restoration Fund for 25 years; and Vice Chairman of the fellows of the National Tropical Botanical Garden. 

The Crocker and De Limur families have been associated with philanthropy and arts patronage since the late 19th Century: Charles Crocker as the American executive immortalized as one of the Big Four who built the transcontinental railroad and Ethel De Limur as a leading patron of Impressionist art and who helped organize a series of exhibitions which first introduced Impressionism to California in the 1890’s. The family legacy of patronage also includes founding The Crocker Art Museum, the longest continuously operating art museum in the West.