Elizabeth Taylor’s personal jewelry collection

Elizabeth Taylor’s personal jewelry collection was touted as one of the greatest ever assembled; this is partly because of the superlative quality of the collection, and partly because of our profound fascination with the woman who wore them.

In 1961 Elizabeth Taylor arrived in Rome to star as Isis, Queen of the Nile in the cinematic magnum opus Cleopatra. In Rome, this era was known as the Golden Age of cinema; the movie studio Cinecittà was located just outside of town, attracting hoards of international movie stars to the Eternal City. Bulgari’s store on via dei Condotti – just a stone’s throw from the Spanish Steps - became the prime destination for the glitterati. This is when Taylor began to amass her spectacular collection of Bulgari jewels.

Taylor stated that “undeniably one of the biggest advantages to filming Cleopatra in Rome was Bulgari’s shop. I used to visit Gianni Bulgari in the afternoon and we’d sit and swap stories.” It was in that very place where Elizabeth Taylor became the temporary “guardian,” as she liked to be known, of fabulous Bulgari jewels.