The Loose Stone Exhibition

Marion Davies assembled one of the great private jewelry collections of the twentieth century — not through inheritance, but through the sustained patronage of one of the most powerful men in America. William Randolph Hearst, whose newspaper empire reached into nearly every American city and whose influence extended deep into politics, culture, and commerce, spent decades adorning Davies with stones of exceptional scale and quality. The Kashmir sapphire alone — 61.92 carats, faceted, with the clipped-corner outline characteristic of the finest Kashmiri cutting — would be the centerpiece of any institutional collection in the world. That it existed alongside three other major stones in a single woman's private possession speaks to a level of acquisition that belonged entirely to another era.

Kashmir sapphires occupy a category of their own among colored stones. The region of Kashmir, in the high Himalayas, produced exceptional blue sapphires for a brief and unrepeatable period roughly between 1880 and 1930 — principally from the Paddar valley mines, which were exhausted within a generation of their discovery. The color these stones produce is unlike that of any other sapphire deposit: a saturated, velvety cornflower blue, caused by a microscopic silk-like inclusion structure that diffuses the light internally and gives the stone a luminous depth that no treatment can replicate. The finest stones from Kashmir do not flash or glitter; they seem to glow. Because the source is entirely depleted — no new Kashmir sapphires of consequence have emerged in nearly a century — even a modest Kashmir of verified origin commands prices multiples above comparable stones from Burma or Ceylon. At 61.92 carats, the Davies stone would be among the largest faceted Kashmiri sapphires with a documented provenance in private hands.

Laykin et Cie presented these stones to the Los Angeles public in the 1960s through the I. Magnin salon at Wilshire and New Hampshire — the kind of presentation that Joel Laykin organized across fine jewelry firms and department store salons throughout the country during the estate tour years. The advertisement is characteristically plain: the stones are sketched at actual size, their weights noted, an invitation extended. No exaggerated language, no romantic copy. The stones required none.