Editor’s Note: This article was up to date with the ultimate sale value and different particulars following the public sale’s conclusion.
NCS
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A diamond necklace that has been worn at two British coronations, and is believed to include stones from the notorious necklace on the coronary heart of a Marie Antoinette scandal, offered for over 4.2 million Swiss francs ($4.8 million) at an public sale in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday.
Weighing roughly 300 carats, the 18th-century piece was possible created a decade earlier than the French Revolution. A touring exhibition forward of the public sale marked the primary time it was seen in public in 50 years, in accordance to Sotheby’s, which dealt with the sale.
Despite the precise origins of the necklace not being recorded, the public sale home believes the vintage piece might solely have been made for royalty or a high-ranking aristocrat.
In the early twentieth century, it belonged to the Marquesses of Anglesey, a number one aristocratic household within the UK with shut ties to the British royal household, Sotheby’s stated.
Marjorie Paget, marchioness of Anglesey, wore the necklace to the coronation of King George VI in 1937. Her daughter-in-law then wore the identical jewel to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, in accordance to a press launch revealed forward of the sale.
After the household parted with the diamond piece within the Nineteen Sixties, it was exhibited within the American Museum of Natural History earlier than being acquired by a personal collector.
“This rare and important diamond jewel is a sublime survivor from the opulent court life of the Georgian era, defined by its unrivalled pomp and splendour; it is arguably one of the most magnificent and intact Georgian jewels in private hands,” stated Andres White Correal, chairman of Sotheby’s jewelry Europe and Middle East and head of noble jewels, within the launch.
“When compared to other surviving Imperial and Royal jewels from the same period, this necklace stands head and shoulders above these examples; it is a fortune in diamonds, and also a masterclass in exquisite design, workmanship and technical innovation for the period,” he added.
The piece consists of three rows of diamonds that path on both aspect right into a diamond tassel.
Each diamond is of an previous mine sensible reduce and weighs between one and one-and-a-half carats, in accordance to Sotheby’s, which stated the diamonds have been possible sourced from India’s legendary Golconda mines, where the Hope Diamond was discovered.
Jewels from that point interval have been typically identified for their luxurious and flexibility, with one piece having the potential to be worn as a necklace or as an decoration sewn into a bit of clothes, in accordance to the discharge.
This specific piece will be worn across the neck with the tassels hanging down on both aspect, or with the piece tied in a easy knot.
A glittering scandal
Some of the diamonds from the necklace could have come from the piece on the coronary heart of the “Affair of the Diamond Necklace” scandal, in accordance to the public sale home.
The glittering 1785 scandal on the courtroom of Louis XVI concerned a cardinal who was trying to regain the favor of Marie-Antoinette, the final Queen of France, who was tricked into buying a necklace on behalf of somebody pretending to be the Queen.
However, the deceit got here to gentle when the jewelers, who by no means acquired the primary instalment for the necklace, utilized for the cash straight from the Queen, who by no means acquired the necklace.
The necklace, within the fingers of a trickster, had within the meantime really been damaged up and offered in London.
The scandal tarnished the status of Marie Antoinette, who was unjustly accused of getting an immoral relationship with a cardinal, and discredited the French monarchy forward of the French Revolution, by which the Queen in the end met her demise.