LOT 224 AN EARLY 20TH CENTURY CONVERTIBLE DIAMOND FLORAL TIARA/NECKLACE, BY CARRINGTON & Co., LONDON

This beautiful and intricate tiara was made by Carrington & Co., London, circa, 1910, for Phyllis Elinor Turner (1893-1958) for her presentation at court, possibly at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, before her marriage to Gilbert Maxwell Adair Graham on the 19th June 1913. Phyllis and her brother Arthur Turner were born, brought up, and lived their lives in Porto, amongst the 1000-strong Anglo-Portuguese community, and in her lifetime Phyllis worked tirelessly for poor relief charities in the Douro Valley and was made a Dame of the Order of Christ of Portugal for her charitable work. During World War I Gilbert Maxwell Adair Graham was on the Staff of the Quartermaster General Department at the War Office and received an OBE 1918 and a CBE in 1919. Gilbert’s Scottish family had long trading links with Portugal starting in the late 18th century. Their introduction to the port business came in 1820 when John Graham exported 27 barrels of port to Glasgow in lieu of an unpaid debt. By the 1880s the Graham family’s port trading was so successful they launched the W. & J. Graham port business. The Graham family purchased their own Portuguese estates in 1890, the Quinta dos Malvados vineyards in the Douro Valley, in order to produce their own port grapes. After many successful years in the port trade, the Graham family sold their remaining share of the W. & J. Graham business in 1970. In subsequent decades decedents of the Graham family has bought other vineyards in Douro Valley and have set up a new successful port business with their brand, Churchill’s Port. Thence by family descent.