Today marks the 30th Anniversary of the Death of Princess Faiza of Egypt, who passed away on this day in 1994! The daughter of the first King of Egypt and Sudan, Princess Faiza possessed this magnificent Van Cleef & Arpels Art Deco Emerald Necklace!
A magnificent Art Deco Emerald Necklace composed of a baguette-cut and epaulet-shaped diamond neckchain enhanced by pavé-set diamond scalopped links, suspending at the front a fringe of nine graduated drop-shaped emeralds with baguette-cut diamond line surmounts, alternated with rectangular-cut diamond collets, to the pendant clasp with drop-shaped emerald terminal, circa 1929.
Unlike the new jewels commissioned by the Egyptian Royal Family from Van Cleef & Arpels for Queen Nazli and Princess Fawzia, this Art Deco Emerald Necklace made in 1929 was a stock piece acquired around 1947.
Princess Faiza most notably wore her magnificent Van Cleef & Arpels Art Deco Emerald Necklace for a Ball at the El Tahra Palace in Cairo in 1948. Celebrated Jewellery writer Vincent Meylan said:
When you look at the pictures of the Egyptian court, 60 or even 70 years ago, it is very hard to imagine that such a refined world ever existed. All the princesses and the ladies who smile on these photographs seem to belong to a fairy tale land which vanished centuries ago. In fact all of this is rather close to our time and some witnesses are still alive.
The beauty of King Farouk’s sisters was truly breathtaking. Thanks to them and their ladies in waiting, parties at the Abdine Palace in Cairo or at the Montazah Palace in Alexandria were always an amazing show of elegance and grace. Princess Faiza’s emerald and diamond necklace is a very rare souvenir of that time. After the 1952 revolution and the exile of the royal family, many of their jewels were sold and dismounted.
This one is still intact. Maybe its survival has something to do with the extraordinary taste of the woman who bought it in 1947 at Van Cleef & Arpels in Paris. As one member of the Egyptian royal family recently told me: ‘All my aunts were beautiful. Aunt Fawzia (The Shah of Iran first wife who died in Egypt only a few months ago) was the most beautiful of them. But aunt Faiza had something more than beauty. She had an amazing charm. Last time I saw her, a few years before she died, she was almost 70, but when she entered a room everybody would turn around and look at her in admiration.’
Born at Abdine Palace on November the 8th of 1923, Princess Faiza was the most attractive of King Farouk’s five sisters. In 1945, she decided to marry a distant Turkish cousin, Mohamed Ali Bulent Raouf. It is often said that King Farouk was not very pleased by this wedding as he would have much preferred his sister to marry a foreign prince. Princess Faiza was very lively, witty, and she had a wonderful taste for clothes and jewels. She was a regular customer of the Parisian couture houses, especially Chanel. As far as jewellery was concerned, Van Cleef & Arpels was definitely her favorite house.
When the Egyptian Royal Family fled Egypt in 1952, Princess Faiza took her Van Cleef & Arpels Art Deco Emerald Necklace and retained for several years before quietly selling it off in the years before she passed away in 1994.
Princess Faiza could also be a bit provocative in her opinions. In 1952, a few months before the Egyptian revolution, she and her husband launched privately a homemade film about a military coup, which is exactly what happened in July 1952. After the revolution, Princess Faiza and her husband spent a few years in Europe. Upon their divorce, the Princess decided to move to California where she lived with her mother, Queen Nazli and her sister, Princess Fathia. She found a new life there. And there she remained until the end of her life in 1994. She never went back to Egypt.
In 2013, Princess Faiza’s Van Cleef & Arpels Art Deco Emerald Necklace came up for Auction at Christie’s in Geneva, selling for CHF 3,861,000, far above the estimate of CHF 2,500,000 – CHF 3,500,000. Meylan continued:
The emerald and diamond necklace which is offered here demonstrates the same taste. The craftsmanship is perfect. The emerald drops hang from the diamond motives set in a very pure Art Deco style. The necklace is imposing, which is normal as it was worn by Princess Faiza as a ‘Court Jewel’, yet it is very graceful and the stones move very gently on the ‘décolleté’ of the woman who wears the piece.
It is one of the privileges of jewellery to give some kind of immortality to its owner. And the discovery of this truly amazing piece of jewellery, which could have been lost forever, brings back to our minds the delicate memory of a most elegant, gracious and beautiful woman : HRH Princess Faiza of Egypt.
Princess Faiza’s Art Deco Emerald Necklace was acquired by Van Cleef & Arpels, and has now travelled the world to be displayed at Van Cleef & Arpels Exhibitions, most recently in the ‘Garden of Emeralds’ Exhibitions in Dubai and New York City this year.
A similar Emerald Necklace belongs to Tengku Puteri Iman of Pahang, the eldest daughter of the Sultan of Pahang and former King of Malaysia, which appears to have been a Wedding Gift when she married Tengku Dato’ Sri Abu Bakar Ahmad in 2018.
