jewel of india; A pearl necklace recalls the glamorous life of a jet-setting maharani.(Sita Devi)

Byline: Stephanie La Cava

Dubbed the Indian Wallis Simpson in 1943, when the Maharaja Pratapsingh Gaekwar of Baroda left his first wife to marry her, Sita Devi was as famous for her jewels as she was for her flamboyant personality. After meeting her future husband at the racetrack in Madras, the cigar-smoking 26-year-old publicly renounced Hinduism for Islam, thereby conveniently annulling her first marriage. (She promptly reconverted to Hinduism after becoming the maharani.) At a time when maharajas eagerly embraced Western luxuries, the couple soon decamped to Europe, taking along the Star of the South and English Dresden diamonds and a collection of family jewels dating back to the Mughal era, which included a seven-strand necklace of natural Gulf pearls. Dividing her time between Paris and London, with occasional jaunts to their estate in Monaco, Sita Devi embraced her new continental lifestyle. In 1947, she was photographed for Vogue in a sari of cerulean chiffon and a dazzling ruby parure. With the Indian gems her husband lavished on her, she regularly commissioned the likes of Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels to create one-of-a-kind ...