February is, in fact, synonymous with love and romance, however do you know its patron saint may additionally have been a fan of this month’s birthstone, the amethyst?

In line with some historic accounts, Saint Valentine was mentioned to have owned an amethyst ring carved with a picture of Cupid, no much less. Emperor Claudius II had banned marriage, believing married males made unhealthy troopers, and it’s mentioned that Valentine, believing this was unfair, broke the foundations and organized marriages in secret. When Claudius found this, he threw Valentine in jail, sentencing him to dying. There, he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and, when he was taken to be killed on 14 February, he despatched her a love letter signed ‘out of your Valentine’.

Valentine wasn’t the one amethyst-lover: Cleopatra was mentioned to put on an amethyst ring engraved with the picture of Mithra, the Persian solar god, while kings and queens have worn the semi-precious stone of their regalia for the reason that Center Ages.

Few love tales have captured our hearts like that of King Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson, later the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. They turned often called probably the most romantic {couples} of the century, when Edward renounced the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis, the love of his life, in 1937.

Like his grandfather earlier than him, who had awarded a royal warrant to Cartier in 1904, Edward was an ardent fan of the amethyst, commissioning many particular items, such because the spectacular bib-style necklace, in a putting mixture of amethyst (essentially the most outstanding cabochon amethyst a coronary heart form), turquoise and diamonds, suspended from a gold rope-like chain. The duchess debuted the necklace in 1953, with matching earrings, on the gala ball on the Orangerie de Versailles. The 12 months following the duchess’s dying in 1986, the necklace went up for public sale at Sotheby’s in Geneva, fetching $605,000, with the general quantity setting a brand new world report for a single proprietor jewelry assortment, at $50 million.

Right here, a have a look at 28 of one of the best amethyst items to sparkle on this February.