Two diamond-encrusted Cartier brooches, depicting a falcon and a white Tudor rose, once owned by millionaire Virginia Courtauld have gone on display in the Courtauld’s former home at south London’s Eltham Palace.

Once a favoured medieval palace and then a Tudor royal residence, Eltham Palace was in a state of neglect when it was leased in 1933 to eccentric millionaires Stephen and Virginia Courtauld. Together, the couple transformed it into a lavish home combining Art Deco architecture and state of the art technology, while retaining and restoring the magnificent surviving great hall built for Edward IV in the 1470s.

Perhaps to celebrate the completion of their new home, Stephen commissioned and presented Virginia with two brooches in 1937 which depicted the cyphers of Edward IV; the White Rose of York upon the starburst of Richard II, known as Rose en Soleil, and the Falcon and Fetterlock.

The falcon is set with single cut diamonds and the background of the brooch is half set with cross-hatched pink tourmaline gems and half with striking blue sapphires, while the rose is within a sunburst surround, set with single cut diamonds and a yellow citrine centre, its background is similarly half set with pink tourmaline and blue sapphires. The brooches also mimic stained glass windows in the great hall which the Courtaulds commissioned to include Edward IV’s same cyphers – possibly to reflect Eltham as one of the monarch’s favourite royal residences.

The brooches, recently acquired by English Heritage with a grant from Art Fund, and a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation, are now on public display at Eltham Palace for the first time.