Munnu Kasliwal - Telegraph Nowadays the family's clients include most of the world's royal families. The Prince of Wales is said to obtain his crested cufflinks from them, and for her marriage to him Camilla Parker Bowles wore earrings made by the family. Diana, Princess of Wales, also came away with earrings on her visit to India in 1992, and the Gem Palace visitors" books include such names as Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy. Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman once posed for a cover of Vogue with a double-strand Gem Palace necklace snaking across her bare back. "Our clients are not like the regular,"" Kasliwal explained. They want things that are different, not mass-produced. As well as the stones themselves, Kasliwal also acquired a growing collection of historic pieces, some dating back to the 16th century, including a gold drinking flask in the form of a life-size parakeet with wings covered in rubies and diamonds. By looking up family records, Kasliwal found that the bird was one of a set of four completed for a noble family in 1890, which had taken 16 craftsmen eight years to complete. Other items in the collection included Shah Jahan's jade drinking cup; an enamelled necklace and pair of bracelets worn by the young Mughal emperor Jahangir, who ruled from 1605 to 1627; and a diamond fringe necklace made for a Habsburg princess to attend the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 2006 Treasures from the Gem Palace, an exhibition of 250 pieces of jewellery from the Kasliwal family - historic and contemporary - was held at Somerset House. Among the exhibits was a floor-length bridal headdress for a Saudi princess, made entirely of diamonds and pearls. Munnu Kasliwal was born in Jaipur on July 7 1958, and educated by the Jesuits at St Xavier's Senior Secondary School and the University of Rajasthan, where he took a degree in Business Management before joining the family firm. His childhood toys included sacks of semi-precious stones, yet Kasliwal had no formal training as a jeweller. At the Gem Palace he held court in his private chamber, sitting cross-legged behind a cloth-covered table on to which he would spill mini-cascades of emeralds, rubies, diamonds, citrines and pearls from small cotton sacks, captivating his customers with his knowledge and enthusiasm. Visitors often came away amazed at his apparently casual attitude to security, but it seems that Kasliwal had few worries on that score: "Indians are very superstitious about gems," he told an interviewer. If anyone buys a stolen stone or acquires it wrongly, it will curse them. We have a saying: 'Someone who steals gems will lose his eyesight."" Munnu Kasliwal is survived by his wife, Kalpana, and by two sons. Munnu Kasliwal, born July 7 1956, died August 23 2012