Socialite’s Boucheron Jewels Leave John Benjamin Speechless | Antiques Roadshow UK

0:00 Now, this is an exceedingly glamorous woman.

0:03 Before we get on to the jewellery, little bit of information.

0:06 Who is she?

0:06 Well, this lady is Pat Marlowe, who was a socialite during the late 40s and 50s,

0:12 working on the stage in the West End.

0:14 One of the people that she met was Prince Aly Khan.

0:18 And Prince Aly Khan, who married Rita Hayworth later on.

0:22 Right.

0:22 But he also had a liaison with Pat.

0:25 And had these jewels made for her.

0:28 Right, OK.

0:29 So we have somebody who really did live a life.

0:33 And now we're going to move on to the jewellery.

0:36 Inside the grey suede box, we have a charming multicoloured gold dress ring.

0:44 And inside the pink box...

0:47 What about that?

0:48 A cocktail bracelet.

0:51 And these surely dovetail in with the social life that this woman had.

0:56 Cocktail parties, Café Royal… I mean, these evoke it, don't they?

1:01 Absolutely.

1:02 They really do.

1:02 How on earth did you get them?

1:04 Well, Pat was a very dear friend of my mother's.

1:06 And when Pat died, they were passed on to her.

1:10 And they've been in our family ever since.

1:12 And I remember them when I was a little girl.

1:15 And my mother knows I'm here today

1:16 and is interested to find out more about them.

1:18 I sure she might.

1:19 Well, let's try and help out then, shall we?

1:21 Thank you.

1:21 Good.

1:22 Now, the interesting thing about this is that in the lid

1:25 of each of these boxes is the name Boucheron.

1:29 Boucheron, French manufacturer.

1:32 Really did make a lot of jewellery for society people.

1:36 And that was the lightning conductor, really.

1:38 To have jewellery like this, you would wear it and it

1:41 was striking because it was supposed to make an impact.

1:44 And that is exactly what this jewellery does.

1:46 The ring itself, I would date it to probably around about, well, 1958, 1960.

1:53 Bracelet around the same age.

1:55 I say bracelet, well, we'll come on to that in a minute.

1:58 So the ring itself, a gold rope-pattern ring.

2:02 Lovely emeralds, sapphires, rubies, diamonds.

2:06 What you might call a fruit salad of gemstones.

2:09 The bracelet.

2:11 Well, it's a little bit more than a bracelet, because, of course,

2:13 if I take it out of the case… ..we can see it's actually a watch.

2:19 It's a bracelet watch.

2:21 There it is, with what I call

2:24 a champagne-coloured circular dial…- Ooh, lovely word.

2:27 ..hidden by a cocktail cluster with a kind of a clip-on, clip-off mechanism.

2:33 Dead snazzy.

2:34 Emeralds, rubies, diamonds and sapphires.

2:38 And can you imagine what an impact they

2:41 must have been when she wore these items?

2:43 Oh, gosh, yes.

2:44 Right.

2:44 The ring, inside the back, is signed "Boucheron, Paris", OK?

2:50 Yes.

2:50 Happy with that?

2:51 Very.

2:51 I'll put it back like that.

2:52 The bracelet is signed on the dial...

2:56 .."Boucheron".

2:58 And just to supplement it further, on the back of the polish case,

3:03 it's signed "Boucheron, Paris" on the back.

3:07 Excellent.

3:07 So I think we can be fairly categorical…- It's a giveaway, yes.

3:10 ..that they are indeed by Boucheron.

3:11 Shall we now move on to the question of what I think they're worth?

3:17 Now, I have to tell you, at the moment, that signed,

3:21 post-war jewellery made in France in the 1950s and 1960s are super in demand.

3:29 Everybody wants them.

3:30 The market has gone stratospheric.

3:32 This is not bad news, is it?

3:34 No, I'm just keeping very quiet and listening.

3:37 OK.

3:38 So I'm going to quote you my opinion of auction estimates.

3:42 Doesn't mean that they'll finish up making those prices.

3:45 The ring, £5,000.

3:48 The bracelet watch, £15,000.

3:50 OK.

3:51 Thank you.

3:51 In other words, £20,000 for the two.

3:55 Absolutely stonking French Boucheron jewellery, owned by a woman who...

4:01 I will never forget that photograph.

4:02 Ah, thank you.