Elizabeth Taylor with the heart-shaped necklace and Richard Burton.
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Burton and Taylor met on the set of Cleopatra (1963), where they played lovers on-screen, only to end up falling truly in love with each other in real life. Shortly after, they married, then divorced, and then remarried again.
For his bride’s 40th birthday in 1972, Burton, aware of Taylor’s passion for jewelry, gifted her a necklace with a heart-shaped diamond in a gold heart-shaped setting embellished with rubies, jade, and diamonds.
Elizabeth Taylor on her birthday.
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It is certainly no coincidence that the jewelry is known as the Cartier Taj Mahal necklace. On the surface of the heart-shaped diamond is engraved a romantic inscription reading “Love is eternal” in Parsi. It also bears the name of Nur Jahan, the original recipient of the jewel, as a gift from her husband, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahangir.
According to reports from the auction house Christie’s, where the jewel sold at auction in 2011 for $8.8 million, the Indian ruler had his wife’s name engraved on the stone in 1037, as well as the number 23, which refers to the year of Shah Jahangir’s reign, which equates to 1627-28 AD. Although it is not known whether Nur Jahan ever wore the jewel, it appears that it later ended up in the hands of his son, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who gave it as a gift to his own beloved wife, Mumtaz-Mahal, who died in childbirth after bearing him 14 children. Overcome with grief, he had the world-famous Taj Mahal mausoleum erected for her in her memory in Agra, India, for which only the finest materials available in the world were used.