Marie Antoinette-linked diamond necklace fetches $4.8 million at auction

A necklace, believed to be associated with a scandal that contributed to the downfall of the ill-fated French queen Marie Antoinette, was sold at auction for $4.81 million (£3.8 million). This Georgian piece, adorned with approximately 500 diamonds, commanded a price nearly double the estimate provided by Sotheby’s auction house. Andres White Correal, a jewellery specialist from Sotheby’s, characterized the evening as “an electric night,” adding that the anonymous female buyer was “ecstatic.” The jewels were auctioned in Geneva on Wednesday evening. White Correal shared the buyer’s sentiment: “said something beautiful to me: ‘I’m exceptionally happy that I won this lot; but I don’t own it, I’m merely the custodian until the next person will come along’.” He further remarked on the market: “There is obviously a niche in the market for historical jewels with fabulous provenances. “People are not only buying the object, they are buying all the history that is attached to it.”” Marie Antoinette was born in Austria in 1755 and was sent to France to become the child bride of the future King Louis XVI. The final queen of France was guillotined in 1793 at the age of 37, along with her husband, during the height of the French Revolution. It is thought that some of the diamonds in the necklace sold on Wednesday were originally part of the “affair of the diamond necklace” scandal in the 1780s, an event that may have hastened Marie Antoinette’s demise. In this incident, Jeanne de la Motte, a noblewoman facing financial hardship, impersonated the French Queen and tricked a cardinal into acquiring the necklace without payment. When Marie Antoinette, who had no knowledge of the transaction, was contacted about the outstanding payment, the cardinal was arrested but subsequently declared innocent. La Motte was located and branded with a V, for voleuse (thief), using a hot iron. Although Marie Antoinette was found to be blameless, her reputation is widely believed to have been tarnished by the affair, leading to her unpopularity among the French people, who accused her of extravagance and being a dangerous influence on the king. Jewels from the original necklace, which was set with 650 diamonds and weighed around 2,800 carats, were sold individually on the black market. Sotheby’s stated that a jeweller working on London’s Bond Street confirmed purchasing more than half of them for £10,000 shortly after their disappearance. Some experts suggest that the age and quality of the diamonds in the necklace sold on Wednesday indicate a match with the original pieces. The necklace was previously worn by the Marquess of Anglesey at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, and also 16 years earlier at King George VI’s crowning. It remained part of the Anglesey family jewellery collection for approximately 100 years before being sold to a private Asian collector in the 1960s. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.