Grace Kelly's Cartier Engagement Ring
A 10.47 carat Cartier emerald cut, valued near $39 million today. It also wasn't the ring Prince Rainier proposed with, which is the part most people never hear.
3 min read
A platinum Cartier ring set with a 10.47 carat emerald-cut diamond flanked by two tapered baguettes, given by Prince Rainier III in 1956 and valued today at around $39 million. It's among the most expensive celebrity engagement rings ever, and it wasn't the ring he originally proposed with.
Was it the most beautiful ring of all time? Plenty of people will tell you it was, without hesitation. I'm a third generation jeweler, and I'll go as far as stunning and let you argue the rest.
What was the first ring?
This is the part that gets left out, and it's my favourite detail in the whole story.
Rainier's first engagement ring to Grace Kelly was not the Cartier diamond at all. It was an eternity band set with rubies and diamonds, red and white, the colours of the Monegasque flag. A personal, patriotic, relatively modest thing. The famous emerald cut came afterwards, and one account has it that the upgrade followed Kelly's return to Hollywood, where the ring she was wearing was going to be seen by a great many people with opinions. Whether or not that's the reason, the sequence is right: the small meaningful one came first, the enormous famous one second.
I like that. It's a reminder that the ring everyone photographs isn't always the one that mattered most at the time.
What is the ring actually made of?
Cartier, platinum, and a 10.47 carat emerald-cut diamond with a tapered baguette on each side.
The three-stone arrangement carries the old meaning of past, present and future, which is exactly why the layout has never gone out of fashion and why I still sell three-stone rings every year. The emerald cut is worth a word too. It's a step cut rather than a brilliant cut, so instead of fire and sparkle you get long flashes and a clear window into the stone. It's the least forgiving cut there is. A brilliant hides inclusions in its sparkle, and an emerald cut hides nothing, so a stone of that size cut that way has to be exceptionally clean. That's a large part of the value and almost nobody mentions it.
What is it worth?
Around $39 million by current estimates, which places it among the most expensive celebrity engagement rings ever recorded, though not, as I previously wrote here, the most expensive of all time.
You'll also see a figure of about $4.06 million quoted as the 1956 price. Treat that one with some care. It's repeated widely, but it reads much more like a modern back-calculation than a number off a Cartier invoice, and I'd rather tell you that than hand you a precise figure I can't stand behind.
Where else can you see it?
In her final film. Kelly wore the real ring in High Society, released in 1956, where her character turns it in the light and admires it on a seat cushion.
She was twenty-six when she left acting to become Princess of Monaco, already an Academy Award winner. What my grandfather and my father taught me is that jewelry matters because of the people attached to it, and that ring is a fairly complete demonstration of the principle. It's a wonderful stone. It's remembered because of who wore it.
I've never sold an engagement ring like Princess Grace's. I do believe everyone falls in love regardless of their finances, and that everyone is entitled to a beautiful ring at whatever their budget happens to be. If you need an engagement ring in San Diego, give me a call.
