La Peregrina

La Peregrina, Spanish for the Pilgrim or the Wanderer, is a pear shaped natural saltwater pearl found in the Gulf of Panama in the sixteenth century. As found it weighed 223.8 grains (55.95 carats); cleaning and drilling in 1913 reduced it to 203.84 grains, about 50.96 carats. It sold at Christie's New York in December 2011 for 11.8 million dollars, a record price for a pearl jewel at auction, and is now in a private collection.

The documented provenance begins with the Spanish crown. The pearl was presented to King Philip II of Spain, who made it part of the Spanish Crown Jewels, and it appears in royal inventories for more than 200 years. Queens Margaret of Austria and Elisabeth of France wore it, as recorded in portraits by Velazquez. Joseph Bonaparte took the pearl with him when he left Spain after his 1808-1813 rule and bequeathed it to the future Napoleon III, who later sold it to James Hamilton, Duke of Abercorn. The Hamiltons kept it until 1969, when Richard Burton bought it for 37,000 dollars at Sotheby's London for Elizabeth Taylor, who had Cartier set it in a necklace of pearls, diamonds, and rubies.

One famous chapter is contested. Tradition holds that Philip II gave the pearl to Queen Mary I of England and that it appears in her portraits, but La Peregrina is first recorded in 1579, 21 years after Mary's death, and the pearl in her portraiture is now identified as a different jewel.