Editor’s Note
This article explores the transatlantic marriages of American heiresses during the Gilded Age, using the Vanderbilt family as a prime example. It moves beyond the famous story of Consuelo Vanderbilt to highlight the lesser-known union of her cousin, Gladys Vanderbilt, with Hungarian Count László Széchényi.
That Gilded Age wedding scene may have been a direct reference to Consuelo Vanderbilt and her miserable marriage to the Duke of Marlborough, but she wasn’t the only Vanderbilt—let alone American heiress—to find a titled husband across the pond. In 1908, her cousin Gladys Vanderbilt—daughter of Cornelius II and Alice, younger sister of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, future aunt of Gloria Vanderbilt—followed suit and found a Euro aristo of her own: Count László Széchényi, a member of one of the oldest dynasties in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Their ceremony—which took place on a cloudless January afternoon at the bride’s sprawling family palace at 1 West 57th Street—was, per the New York Times, “of the simplest order.” By Vanderbilt standards anyway, which meant 400 guests, more than 100 police officers to manage the swells of paps and curious onlookers, 35 members of the St. Patrick’s Cathedral Choir, and a 65-piece orchestra that played excerpts from Tristan and Isolde, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony Pathétique. The Pope sent his blessings via telegram.
As for the wedding gifts, it’s safe to assume they were not “of the simplest order.” In what might have been in honor of her youngest daughter’s new aristocratic title, Alice Poole Vanderbilt commissioned a Cartier tiara designed as lily sprays with interchangeable pear-shaped amethysts and diamonds. The flowers could be detached as brooches.
Come November 10, one of those brooches—as well as 12 other pieces of Vanderbilt jewelry history, all from Gladys’s collection—are coming up for auction at Phillips’s Geneva Jewels Auction: V.
A Cartier diamond brooch, originally part of a tiara that Gladys Vanderbilt received as a wedding gift from her mother, with a 4.55-carat pear-shaped diamond, is estimated for $100,000-150,000.
• Cartier gold, ruby, and diamond vanity case. Estimate: $8,000-12,000.
• Diamond and emerald brooch, late 19th century. Estimate: $5,000-8,000.
• Diamond comb, early 20th century. Estimate: $3,000-5,000.
The “Vanderbilt Sapphire,” pièce de résistance of this sale, would have certainly belonged in this category—perhaps that was the intent when Alice, ever the shrewd matriarch, gifted it to Gladys. The Tiffany & Co. brooch features a 42.68-carat unheated Kashmir sapphire surrounded by an intricate openwork design studded with old mine cut diamonds. The low estimate is $1,000,000.
The “Vanderbilt Sapphire” features diamonds and a 42.68-carat Kashmir sapphire. Estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000.
Other gems in the collection include a Cartier traveling clock that was a 1913 Christmas gift from brother-in-law Dénes Széchényi, a monogrammed Cartier gold, ruby, and diamond vanity case, a late 19th-century diamond and emerald bow brooch, and an early 20th-century diamond comb. Together these items paint an intimate portrait not only of Belle Epoque design, but of Gladys Vanderbilt herself.