Princess Diana’s Collingwood Diamond Suite

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Following her Engagement to the Prince of Wales, Lady Diana Spencer wore an antique Diamond Suite on loan from Collingwood Jewellers for her Engagement Portraits 45 years ago, but after she declined it as a wedding present, it was later sold as a supposed Spencer Heirloom by a jeweller in Dusseldorf.

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A magnificent antique Diamond Necklace and a pair of Diamond Girandole Earrings, the exact origin of these jewels is unknown but they date from the 19th-century and were in the collection of Collingwood Jewellers by early 1981.

For the Engagement Portraits taken by the Earl of Snowdon at Highgrove House before the official announcement, Lady Diana wore the striking Diamond Necklace and Girandole Earrings paired with her Engagement Ring.

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Lady Diana Spencer was only nineteen when she became engaged to the Prince of Wales in February 1981 and had very little jewellery of her own. Lady Diana borrowed an antique diamond necklace and matching chandelier earrings from Collingwood to wear with an emerald-green taffeta evening dress for the official engagement photographs taken by Lord Snowdon at Highgrove House.

Collingwood wished to present the Diamond Suite as a wedding present to Lady Diana, but that was deemed inappropriate by Palace officials, so they instead offered her a pair of antique Pearl and Diamond Earrings which were a lifelong favourite and are now worn by the current Princess of Wales.

Collingwood, who have been the Spencer family jewellers since Lady Diana was a girl, had wanted to present her with the diamond set as their wedding gift, but Palace officials ruled that such a valuable present would be improper.

Lady Diana wore the Pearl Earrings with the antique Diamond Necklace for a Banquet at Claridges Hotel during the Saudi State Visit to Britain in June 1981, just a month before the Wedding.

Not long afterwards, the Diamond Necklace and Girandole Earrings were sold to a private dealer and then to an Iranian jeweller in Düsseldorf, Genio Hakimi, who claimed they were supposed Spencer Heirlooms which had been sold off to pay for the Royal Wedding. The subsequent fate of the Diamond Suite is unknown.

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The necklace and earrings were subsequently offered for sale by an Iranian jeweller in Düsseldorf, Genio Hakimi, who claimed they were Spencer heirlooms that had been sold to pay for the wedding. He had bought them from an unscrupulous dealer who offered the engagement photograph as proof that the jewels were Spencer property.