NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT
Los Angeles, CA, February 1, 2025: At the premiere of Wuthering Heights, actor Margot Robbie wore the famed “Taj Mahal” necklace — a Cartier-designed piece valued at an estimated $8–9 million — drawing renewed attention to the jewel’s Mughal-era Indian origins, which were largely absent from early coverage and social media descriptions.
At the heart of the necklace is a rare, heart-shaped diamond dating back to the 17th century. Scholars trace its origins to the Mughal imperial court, during the reign of Shah Jahan, one of India’s most powerful and culturally influential rulers. The diamond bears an inscription in Persian — the court language of the Mughals — widely interpreted as an expression of enduring love, a hallmark of Mughal aesthetic and poetic traditions.
The stone is believed to have been associated with Shah Jahan’s family, a dynasty known not only for political power but also for extraordinary patronage of art, architecture, and jewelry. The emperor’s legacy includes the Taj Mahal itself, built in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and the diamond later came to be linked symbolically with that same culture of devotion and remembrance.
Over time, as empires fell and colonial rule reshaped the subcontinent, many Mughal treasures were dispersed. By the early 20th century, the diamond had left India. It eventually entered the European luxury market, where historic stones from Asia were often stripped of their original context and reframed as exotic collectibles.
In the 1960s, the famed French jeweler Cartier acquired the diamond and remounted it in a necklace combining rubies, jade, and diamonds — materials deliberately chosen to evoke an “Eastern” aesthetic, though the piece was firmly reimagined through a European design lens.
The necklace entered popular culture in 1972, when actor Richard Burton purchased it for Elizabeth Taylor as a 40th birthday gift. Taylor, known for her passion for historic jewelry, embraced the piece and helped cement its identity in Hollywood lore. From that point on, the necklace became widely known through its association with Taylor, often overshadowing its much older Indian provenance.
In recent days, the jewel has re-entered the spotlight after being worn at a major film premiere, prompting renewed interest — and renewed debate — about its origins. While many reports highlighted its Cartier craftsmanship and Hollywood lineage, historians and cultural commentators have pointed out that the necklace’s story begins centuries earlier, in the courts of Mughal India.
For them, the “Taj Mahal” necklace is not merely a luxury accessory or a celebrity heirloom. It is a surviving fragment of Indian history — one that reflects India’s once-central place in the global trade of gems, and the ways in which cultural artifacts travel, transform, and are rebranded over time.
Cover photo credit: Margot Robbie at the Los Angeles premiere of Wuthering Heights. Composite image created from a video screenshot with a symbolic Taj Mahal background for editorial illustration.
