Diamond Cluster Earrings from Lady Mount Stephen's Collection

Pair of diamond cluster earrings, 19th century, each centred with an old mine-cut diamond with estimated weight 0.60 carats within a border of old mine-cut diamonds, mounted in gold, gross weight 4.8gm, length 2.5 cm. Provenance: Lady Mount Stephen (1864-1933). Elsie Reford (1872-1967). Direct descent to the current owner. The jewel collection of lady Mount Stephen, nee Georgiana (Gian) Tufnell (1864-1933), 2nd wife of George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen (1829-1921). Lord Mount Stephen, of Scottish ancestry, was a Canadian millionaire and philanthropist, president of the bank of Montreal, president and builder of the Canadian Pacific railway and the first Canadian to be made a British peer., they married in 1897 and lived in the UK at Brockett hall in Hertfordshire and at Carlton terrace in London. Gian had been lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Teck, Queen Mary's mother, and was a close friend and confidant of Queen Mary. In fact she was a great favourite with many members of the Royal Family and the Mount Stephens regularly entertained Queen Mary and George V at Brockett hall. Lady Mount Stephen gave Queen Mary a spectacular diamond necklace, which was later given to Princess Margaret, who wore it on her wedding day. When lady Mount Stephen died in 1933, the collection passed to Lord Mount Stephen's niece Elsie Reford (1872-1967). Elsie, as both the niece of Lord Mount Stephen and the daughter of Robert Meighen, a wealthy Montreal businessman, was a noted society figure. Her clothes were made in Paris and New York and she and her husband Robert Reford were passionate Collectors of fine Art and jewels and amassed one of the largest Art collections in Canada. When Elsie's daughter-in-law, Evelyn Reford (1899-1994), was presented at court in London, in the 1920s, where she wore the hope spinel as a pendant., these jewels were inherited by Elsie's grand-daughter and lady Mount Stephen's god-daughter., the present owner is a direct descendant of the Reford family.