The bow stomacher was probably made for the wife of the heir to the 4th Duke of Newcastle, Lady Susan Hamilton (1814 - 1889 daughter of Alexander 10th Duke of Hamilton) for the wedding of Queen Victoria in 1835, by Bapst. Lady Susan at once was a star of high society, an angelic child of great beauty and style, she married on 27 November 1832.

 

In 1861, her son, Henry Pelham Alexander Pelham-Clinton, 6th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne (1834 –1879) styled Lord Clinton until 1851 and Earl of Lincoln until he inherited the dukedom in 1864 married Henrietta Hope, heiress of the wealthy Henry Thomas Hope, in Paris, the Hope Diamond, is well known, it was left to Henrietta's son*.

Later the enormous bow brooch was an wedding present to Florence Candy when she married with 17 years, the future Duke of Newcastle Henry Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of Newcastle, in 1889.

This brooch is a fine copy of Empress Eugènie's bowknot, which was sold at auction in 1887. The Duchess wore it on the Devonshire ball in 1897, see in the picture above. This diamond stomacher brooch was sold in Geneva for $279 140.

Some of her spectacular jewels worn by Kathleen Florence May Pelham-Clinton, Duchess of Newcastle née Candy 1872 – 1955, we could see also a three row diamond and pearl choker with diamond and pearl fringes on her neck, other jewels worn to the 1937 coronation.

 

 

*When Hope died on December 4, 1862, his wife Anne Adele inherited the blue diamond, but she feared that the profligate lifestyle of her son-in-law might cause him to sell the Hope properties. Upon Adele's death in 1884, the entire Hope estate, including the Hope Diamond, was entrusted to Henrietta's younger son, Henry Francis Pelham-Clinton, on the condition that he add the name of "Hope" to his own surnames when he reached the age of legal majority.