Lois Chiles’ Cartier Gatsby necklace heads to Christie’s Geneva sale

A carved emerald of 86.71 carats, framed by pearls, emerald beads and diamonds, is bringing a very specific kind of 1920s glamour back to Geneva. The Cartier sautoir worn by Lois Chiles as Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby will go under the hammer at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale on May 13, 2026, with an estimate of CHF 240,000 to CHF 400,000, or about US$310,000 to US$510,000.

What makes the necklace matter is not only its screen history but the way it was made. Cartier New York created the piece in 1925 as a special commission for one of the maison’s most important clients, who already owned the carved emerald centerpiece and asked Cartier to turn it into an Art Deco jewel. That origin story is the difference between a period-style necklace and a true period sautoir: the proportions are long and fluid, the materials are luxurious but disciplined, and the design is built around the stone rather than simply decorated around it.

The central emerald depicts Shiva and Parvati, giving the jewel an iconographic richness that is unusual even in high Cartier work. Around it, pearls soften the severity of the emerald and diamonds add the crispness that defines the Deco vocabulary. In a genuine 1920s sautoir, that balance matters. The best examples do not feel overloaded; they move with the body, combining carved hardstone, pearls and diamonds in a composition that is elegant from a distance and exact up close.

Its Hollywood history only sharpens the appeal. In the 1974 film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge worked with Cartier and longtime house designer Alfred Durante to dress the principal female cast in real Art Deco jewels rather than prop rentals. Lois Chiles wore this necklace on screen, giving the piece a second life that now sits alongside its original Cartier pedigree. The timing is neat, too: 1925 was the year Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, a date that has come to stand for the Deco moment itself.

Christie’s has paired the Cartier necklace with another 1925 Art Deco necklace in the Geneva sale, underscoring how strongly collectors continue to prize the decade’s clean geometry, exceptional materials and documented provenance. For anyone studying an authentic sautoir, this is the formula to remember: a named maker, a believable date, a commanding center stone, original materials, and condition good enough to preserve the line of the jewel. The rest is atmosphere, and this necklace has that in abundance.