Diving for Starfish: The Jeweler, the Actress, the Heiress and One of the World's Most Alluring Pieces of Jewelry

Journalist Cherie Burns first laid eyes on the Boivin starfish at a book launch for her 2011 biography of the American heiress Millicent Rogers, hosted by the Fifth Avenue jeweler Verdura. Burns was shown a palm-size ruby-and-amethyst starfish pin and told that it had been owned by Rogers herself. When Burns returned to Verdura the next day to have another gander, she learned that her party's "honored guest" had already been whisked away by a London dealer.

Burns's enchantment with the piece and interest in its provenance leads to a multiyear quest that takes her to London and Paris, where the house of Boivin designed the starfish in the 1930s. She knows that the now-shuttered house made at least three starfish. Are there more? Where is the Rogers starfish now? And what's become of the one owned by the golden-age-of-Hollywood actress Claudette Colbert? Answers are closely guarded by what Burns, a neophyte to the jewelry world, comes to understand is "a business whose distinguishing feature is secrecy."

Burns has a jeweler's eye for detail when it comes to describing the eccentric characters who animate her detective story. To enjoy Diving for Starfish: The Jeweler, the Actress, the Heiress and One of the World's Most Alluring Pieces of Jewelry, one needn't have an interest in gems--just an appreciation for fine design and strongly held beliefs. Says one typically opinionated industry insider: "Boivin was a designer with a sense of design and good craftsmen. Cartier made junk." --Nell Beram, freelance writer and author

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