For Catherine the Great ... the empress' personal jewelry collection was passed on to her children. Cartier eventually purchased the emerald from the Russian royal family in 1927 and had it ...

In 1745, after being received into the Russian Orthodox Church, and changing her name to Catherine, she married Grand Duke Peter, grandson of Peter the Great and heir to the Russian throne.

Catherine the Great was the most powerful woman of her time, whose 34-year reign, the longest by any female in Russian history, transformed her adopted homeland into a global superpower. Her time as ...