A JEWELLER has revealed how the rock-sized emeralds General Franco gave his granddaughter for her wedding were 'just painted glass stuck together with egg-white'.
Dictator General Franco's granddaughter Carmen Martínez Bordiú, aged 21, marrying Prince Alfonso Jaime de Borbón y Dampierre. They divorced in 1982, just 10 years later, and in 1989, the Prince lost his life in a skiing accident in Colorado (all photos by Pablo Milstein of Milstein Jewellery)
Carmen Martínez Bordiú, who has just turned 71 - and whose mother Carmen Franco y Polo was the only daughter of the dictator who ruled Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975 - would have been celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary on Tuesday this week (March 8), were it not for the fact that she and husband Prince Alfonso Jaime de Borbón y Dampierre had divorced after 10 years of marriage – and he was then killed seven years later, in 1989, in a skiing accident in Colorado, USA.
Balenciaga's last stand
The nuptials of the dictator's granddaughter were on the scale of a Royal wedding, attended by hundreds of celebrities from Spain and beyond, and hogging all the headlines.
Carmen Martínez Bordiú's wedding dress, designed by Cristóbal Balenciaga, at Barcelona Costume Museum
Her bridal gown was the last-ever creation by iconic haute couture designer Cristóbal Balenciaga, who died from a sudden heart attack aged 77 - just 15 days after Carmen Martínez Bordiú wore it to walk down the aisle in – whilst on holiday at the still-operating Parador Hotel in Jávea, Alicante province.
Along with a dress designed by the Basque fisherman's son who clothed the likes of Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, Greta Garbo, Grace Kelly and Marlene Dietrich for red-carpet events, Carmen Martínez Bordiú wore a lavish tiara studded with huge emeralds.
Granddaughter's wedding rocks
Although she did not wear them on the day, the bride had a necklace, earrings, ring and brooch to match, and was frequently seen wearing them after her grandparents, General Franco and his wife Carmen Polo, gave them to her as a wedding gift.
Her mother told her that they had been made to order by a jeweller's in Palma de Mallorca at her aunt's recommendation, and they seemed entirely in keeping with the no-expenses-spared pomp of her marriage ceremony.
She later gave the dress on permanent loan to Barcelona Costume Museum, although it has been released from there a handful of times for one-off exhibitions – and may well be in Jávea this summer when the Costa Blanca town hosts its Balenciaga display to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the designer's passing.
Glass bead game
As for the emerald jewellery and matching tiara, Carmen Martínez Bordiú, following her divorce – and now seven years after the death of her grandfather the dictator – took them to the prestigious London auction house, Sotheby's.
The ‘emeralds’ as Lot 858 at Sotheby's. Nobody bought them.
And she was shocked by the valuation provided, according to master jeweller Pablo Milstein, who has tracked the story, attended the wedding and spoken personally to the family over the years.
The valuers explained the massive green rocks were not, in fact, emeralds, but were doublets of glass, painted green on one side, glued to a flat piece of talc-stone with egg-white, then sealed behind with a metal plate.
'Fake' emeralds like these had been in use since as far back as 1572, according to Milstein – at least, that was the year master jeweller Juan de Arfe explained the process in his book on the subject.
Even then, despite being made from glass, the jewellery itself went up for auction as one lot and the tiara as a separate lot – so as to avoid the public identifying the seller as Franco's granddaughter – with reserve prices set by Sotheby's of between 30,000 and 50,000 Swiss Francs, the equivalent of between €29,000 and €48,000.
Nobody bought them in the end, though, so Carmen took them home again.
Eventually, though, the tiara, with its painted-glass beads instead of real emeralds, was sold in London – with the buyer's full knowledge of what they were – for £60,000 (about €71,400); at the time, in the 1980s, this would have been enough to have bought two detached family homes in the average UK county.
US model in nuptial emeralds
It appears the rest of the set – or at least, the necklace – have never been sold; Carmen Martínez Bordiú's now-ex sister-in-law, Josefina 'Jose' Toledo, was seen wearing it 25 years later.
Josefina ‘Jose’ Toledo in the ‘emerald’ necklace, next to her now-ex husband, Carmen's brother Cristóbal
Canary Islander Jose Toledo, who will be 57 in a month's time, was married to General Franco's grandson José Cristóbal Martínez Bordiú for 33 years and has two grown-up sons, but they divorced in September 2017.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com