Famous Jewelry: The Cotes Peridot Suite
The Cotes Peridot Suite: royal spies reap rich rewards!
King George IV, concerned about the conduct of his daughter, Princess Charlotte of Wales, recruited two members of her household to 'keep an eye on her'. The Cotes sisters apparently excelled at spying, for when the princess married in 1816, the King gifted the sisters with fabulous jewelry suites--one in peridot and the other in amethyst. The Cotes Peridot Suite can be viewed in the Jewellery Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I highly recommend a visit to the V&A for the Jewellery Gallery alone, but the rest of the collections are fabulous too.