This is a true story, retold as a tale. The young apprentice in Rio is imagined, but the gift, the giant aquamarine, its Art Deco box and the controversy that followed it really happened.
The workshop in Rio de Janeiro smelled of varnish and sawdust, and the late-November heat pressed in through the tall windows. Rafael, the youngest apprentice, held his breath as the old craftsman lifted the lid of the box they had been making for weeks.
It was a beautiful box, smooth dark wood in the elegant, geometric Art Deco style, lined inside with soft white satin and velvet. And nestled in the center, waiting, was the most astonishing stone Rafael had ever seen.
It was an aquamarine as long as his hand, cut into a perfect rectangle with stepped facets like the walls of a swimming pool. When the light hit it, it glowed the color of the sea off Copacabana in the early morning.
"Who is it for?" Rafael whispered.
"For the wife of the President of the United States," said the old man.
The Good Neighbor
"Their president, Mr. Roosevelt, is coming here on a great warship," the craftsman explained. "He's traveling all over South America to make friends, to be a good neighbor. And our president, Vargas, wants to give him something for his wife that will show America how much we treasure this friendship."
"So he chose an aquamarine."
"What else? Brazil is the land of aquamarine. This one was found in the hills of Minas Gerais, far from here. It came from our president's own private collection, and it's the largest cut aquamarine anywhere in the world. Twelve hundred and ninety-eight carats."
Rafael's eyes went wide. He had never heard a number like that attached to a gem.
The Gift
On the 27th of November, 1936, the American warship USS Indianapolis sailed into the harbor of Rio. Crowds lined the streets. Rafael pushed through the crowd with his friends just to catch a glimpse of the American president's car.
That day, President Vargas and his wife presented President Roosevelt with the box Rafael had helped to make, a gift for his wife, Eleanor, back home. Rafael never saw her open it. But for the rest of his life he liked to imagine her face when she lifted the lid.
The Controversy
Many years later, after the war, after President Roosevelt had died, Rafael read something in an American newspaper that made him frown.
A famous columnist had accused Mrs. Roosevelt of trying to sell the aquamarine. It turned out she had only tried to find out what it was worth. She was hurt by the story, and she thought about giving the stone back to Brazil. In the end, in 1947, she gave it to the museum at her husband's library in Hyde Park, New York, so that everyone could see it.
She wrote that she hoped it would stand as a symbol of the kindness and generosity of the Brazilian people toward her country.
Rafael, an old craftsman himself by then, cut out the article and pinned it to the wall of his workshop.
"You see?" he told his own apprentices. "A box we made in this room, in this heat, is in a museum in America. Make every piece as if the whole world is going to see it."
The Legend and the Truth
On November 27, 1936, during his "Good Neighbor" voyage to South America aboard the USS Indianapolis, President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas and his wife presented him with a 1,298-carat aquamarine from their private collection as a gift for Eleanor Roosevelt. Mined in Minas Gerais, it was then the largest cut stone of its kind, and came in a custom Art Deco box made by the Rio jeweler Casa Oscar Machado.
In 1947, after a columnist accused her of trying to sell it, Eleanor Roosevelt donated the stone to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, where it can still be seen today.
💡 Read more legends and true stories of aquamarine in The Legends of Aquamarine.
🛍️ A Gift Fit for a First Lady
Explore vintage and antique aquamarine jewelry at 322 Royal Street or online.
