Taylor-Burton Diamond

The Taylor-Burton Diamond is a pear-shaped colorless diamond cut by Harry Winston from a 241 carat rough found at the Premier Mine in South Africa in 1966. The finished stone weighed 69.42 carats and was first owned by Harriet Annenberg Ames, sister of United States ambassador Walter Annenberg. After a 1980 recut it weighs 68.09 carats, and it is in a private collection, last documented with the Mouawad jewellery house.

The diamond became famous at the Parke-Bernet Galleries auction in New York on October 23, 1969, where Cartier won it for $1,050,000, then the highest price paid for a jewel at public auction. Richard Burton, the underbidder, bought it from Cartier the next day for $1.1 million as a gift for Elizabeth Taylor, and the stone was renamed the Taylor-Burton Diamond. Before delivery, Cartier displayed it in New York and Chicago, where thousands of people queued daily to see it. Taylor wore it in November 1969 at Princess Grace's 40th birthday gala in Monaco and at the 42nd Academy Awards on April 7, 1970.

In June 1979, after her second divorce from Burton, Taylor sold the diamond to New York jeweler Henry Lambert for a reported $3 million to $5 million, directing part of the proceeds to fund a hospital in Botswana. Lambert sold it to the Mouawad firm in December 1979, which had it slightly recut in 1980.