As someone who can’t stand wearing jewelry of any kind, I have an unusual interest in jewelry. Especially historical jewels. Christies Geneva will soon put up for auction two diamond bracelets that were owned and worn by the last Queen of France, Marie Antionette. That’s pretty interesting. To me anyway.
The pair of three strand bracelets, set with a total of 112 diamonds, are estimated to sell for $2 to $4 million but could go for much higher because of their provenance.
I had never really thought about what happened to all of her things after she was beheaded on Oct. 16, 1793. Her husband, Louis XVI, had already been executed on Jan. 21, 1793.
By the time French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, Marie Antoinette was one of the most hated figures in the country because of her lavish lifestyle. Imprisoned at the Tuileries in Paris in 1791, the queen sent her jewels to Brussels, believing that she’d eventually be exonerated and reunited with them. Instead, she and her husband were condemned to death and beheaded by guillotine.
The couple’s daughter and only surviving child, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte de France, also known as “Madame Royale,” survived the revolution, outliving both her parents and her brother, the young Louis XVII. She was released in December 1795 and sent to Austria where she took possession of her mother’s jewelry. An 1816 portrait of Marie-Thérèse shows the royal wearing the pair of bracelets. So these jewels can be traced back directly to Marie Antionette. Other pieces of the queen’s jewelry have gone up for auction in recent years. In 2018, for instance, a pearl and diamond pendant once worn by the doomed monarch sold at Sotheby’s for $36 million.
According to Town and Country, “Whatever jewels that survived the French Revolution were ultimately sold off. After Napoleon III’s defeat, the new government offered up the Crown jewels in the famous sale of 1887, where treasures including grand tiaras, crowns and other important jewelry went to the highest bidders, including Tiffany & Co.
“Most of those pieces were broken apart and refashioned into new designs. It’s still a sore point for the French, because it’s been said that if they had survived, the French Crown Jewels would be far more valuable than the British Royal Jewels that are on display at the Tower of London—but we will never know.”
And that is one of the reasons these particular bracelets are a rarity. They have not been changed or altered in any way over the past centuries.
Marie-Thérèse died childless and the jewels were divided among her nieces and nephews the Count of Chambord (1820-1883), the Countess of Chambord (1817- 1886) and the Duchess of Parma (1819-1864).
Also from Town and Country, “Fast forward to the present day: the diamond bracelets come courtesy of an unnamed royal family who, according to Christie’s, enjoyed wearing them for several decades. Designed as three single strands of diamonds, you might say they are the early versions of diamond tennis bracelets, which only further affirms Marie-Antoinette's status as a trend-setter with an eye for elegantly stylish jewelry.”
So if you’ve got $2 to $4 million lying around they could be yours, but I suspect they will go for a much higher price.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.