Strauss & co - 22 November 2010, Cape Town

24 Property of a Lady 25 Diamond and pearl brooch designed as a flowerhead, set to the centre with a pearl bordered by old-cut diamonds and eight pearls, each diamond-set petal embellished by a pearl, terminating in triangular-shaped leaves with three pearls, suspending a pearl drop, Cartier-London, signature on back clip fastening Pearls not tested and as such unwarranted R70 000 – 80 000 PROVENANCE Countess of Kenmare This brooch was designed by Roderick Cameron, Lady Kenmare’s oldest son. It is partially composed of tie pins that belonged to Lady Kenmare’s late husbands. Rory Cameron, a trend-setting aesthete, was the author of several books and a stylist, decorator and landscape gardener of note, principally famous for his transformation of La Fiorentina, St Jean Cap Ferrat, into one of the jewels of the French Riviera. The jewellery belonging to the Hon. Patricia Cavendish and her late mother Enid Lady Kenmare is evocative of the extraordinary lives lived across many continents by these beautiful and much admired women. Their stories are recounted in Pat Cavendish O’Neill’s A Lion in the Bedroom . Enid Lindeman of the Australian wine-making family was a famous beauty. At twenty-one she married the shipping magnate Roderick Cameron, twenty-four years her senior. Legend has it that when Enid emerged from the Cameron Building in Manhattan the traffic would come to a halt “the better to view this vision of perfection”. Cameron died a year later of cancer in 1914, leaving Enid a young widow, with a fortune of several million pounds and a nine-month-old baby, Rory. In 1917 she married Brigadier-General Frederick ‘Caviar’ Cavendish, father of Patricia and Caryll. Following his death in 1931 she married the fabulously wealthy Marmaduke Furness, 1st Viscount Furness and later Valentine Castlerosse, 6th Earl of Kenmare. The 40s and 50s were spent largely at the magnificent villa La Fiorentina, overlooking the Mediterranean at St Jean Cap Ferrat. Acquired by Viscount Furness for his beautiful wife in 1939, the villa was transformed by her son Rory into a glorious home, and was visited by the rich and famous, including royalty, film stars, and the beau monde . Patricia married Australian champion swimmer Frank O’Neill and later the Comte Aymon de Roussy de Sales. She and Enid joined brother Caryll and family in Kenya, where they farmed, built game lodges, bred race horses and were devoted to their beloved animals that included Pat’s magnificent lioness,Tana. Lady Kenmare acquired Broadlands Stud Farm near Somerset West in the Cape where she spent the last years of her life, and where Pat still resides. Lady Kenmare excelled at everything she did and was adored by her family and friends. She lived by the maxim “Never be ill, never be afraid, and never be jealous”. Lady Kenmare with her trainer, Jan Thrane, photographed accepting the cup for the East African Derby. Lady Kenmare is wearing her pearl and diamond brooch. LITERATURE A Lion in the Bedroom , Pat Cavendish O’Neill, published jointly by Park Street Press and Media 21 Publishing, 2004, p 539