An impressive Edwardian aquamarine and diamond brooch, the pediment with a step cut aquamarine with canted corners, estimated to weigh 87.82 carats, within a millegrained surround of eight cut diamonds, approximately 0.76 carats total, suspending a large briolette aquamarine drop, 5.4cm long, with a banded and pierced scrolled rose cut diamond set cap, suspended from a rose cut diamond bale, total length 10.8cm long, 70.7g gross Provenance: Nancy Witcher Langhorne was born in Danville, Virginia, into a moderately successful railroad business family and she married her first husband, Robert Gould Shaw, at the age of 18 in 1897. The marriage was not terribly successful and it ended in divorce in 1903, after which Nancy made her first tour of Britain and fell in love with the country. She took the advice of her father and along with her sister Phyllis moved to Britain permanently in 1905; here her wit and intelligence were much admired throughout the upper echelons of British society. In 1906 Nancy married fellow American-born Waldorf Astor, having met the previous year on an Atlantic sea crossing.Nancy and Waldorf were given Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire as a wedding present by Waldorf's father, William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor. Cliveden became a major centre for the elites of Edwardian and inter-war society under Nancy and Waldorf, and was renowned for entertaining politicians, writers, academics and film stars. Nancy also received the pale yellow, 55.23 carat, Sancy Diamond as a wedding gift from Viscount Astor. The historic, centuries old stone was reputed to have come from India, due to its unusual faceting, and at different times in its long and rich history had been owned by French and British sovereigns and Russian and Indian nobility. In 1978 the 4th Viscount Astor sold the Sancy Diamond to the Louvre for US $1m. In 1910 Waldorf Astor was elected to Parliament as MP for Plymouth; a seat he held until 1919, when he was elevated to the peerage following the death of his father, becoming Viscount Astor and taking his seat in the House of Lords. Waldorf's Plymouth seat became vacant, and his wife, Nancy, decided to contest the seat. Lady Astor was subsequently elected to Parliament in the bi-election of 1919, and took her seat in Parliament on 1st December 1919, and held the seat for 26 years until her retirement in 1945.This Edwardian jewel has been consigned to auction by Nancy Astor’s great granddaughter, to whom it was left in 1977. The brooch has rarely been seen or worn since then, and has remained, nestled in tissue paper, in a box from Sullivan Powell & Co. Ltd, purveyors of exotic and oriental cigarettes, formerly of Burlington Arcade, London W1. It is fitting that the brooch offered here celebrates Lady Astor's achievement 100 years ago in becoming the first woman MP to take her seat in the Commons, although she was in fact the second woman to be elected to Parliament.