Catherine the Great
I read an article about Catherine the Great in which the author stated that she loved emeralds so much that, when she had a particularly challenging meeting with her generals, she would drape them on, so that her generals would be staring at hundreds of carats of emeralds, as a form of intimidation.
While this is a bit ostentatious by today’s standards, it is true that wearing an appropriate piece of statement jewellery can give you confidence and make you feel like you can take on the world. I think the author called it the power of jewels, or #powerjewels.
The emerald necklace pictured above (L) belonged to Russian Empress Catherine the Great (M) and sold via a Christie’s auction, for $4.3 million on May 15 2019. At right is Duchess Marie, the last known Romanov to own it, wearing it to a costume ball in 1903.
