The rare 300-carat diamond necklace is sold for 4.5 million euros at an auction in Geneva!
An extremely rare 18th-century diamond necklace, possibly linked to a scandal that played a role in the downfall of France's 18th-century queen, Marie Antoinette, has sold for an impressive €4.5 million, exceeded expectations.
The historic piece, weighing approximately 300 carats and consisting of around 500 old brilliant-cut diamonds, was featured at Sotheby's 'Royal and Noble' sale in Geneva. Once owned by high-ranking aristocracy and worn during royal coronations, the necklace was expected to fetch between €1.7 million and €2.6 million, but far exceeded its initial estimate.
"It was an electric night," said Andres White Correal, a Sotheby's jewelry specialist, after the evening sale of the necklace to an undisclosed female buyer.
"There's definitely a place in the market for historic jewelry with fabulous provenance. People are not just buying the object, they're buying all the history that's attached to it."
Originally believed to have been sourced from the Golconda mines in India, the diamonds are famous for their exceptional clarity and rarity, given that the mines closed more than two centuries ago.
"It was famously worn in the 1930s by the 6th Marchioness of Anglesey, whose husband owned it, in a photograph captured by Cecil Beaton that captures the glamor and style of the era and you'd never guess she was wearing an 18th century jewel,” explains Andres White Correal, head of Royal and Noble Sales at Sotheby's.
'The Story of the Necklace'
Adding to its allure, there has been unconfirmed speculation that some of the diamonds in the necklace may be linked to the infamous 18th-century scandal known as "The Affair of the Necklace," which tarnished Marie-Antoinette's reputation in the wake of the French. The revolution.
Here's what went down: An extravagant diamond necklace (worth about €16.45 million in today's money), originally commissioned by King Louis XV for his mistress, Madame du Barry. The Parisian jewelers who worked on it, Charles Auguste Böhmer and Paul Bassenge, found themselves in debt when Louis XV died before he could buy it. They then tried to sell the necklace to his successor, King Louis XVI, hoping his queen, Marie Antoinette, would want it, but she declined.
However, in 1784, a predator named Jeanne de La Motte came up with a cunning scheme to convince her lover Cardinal de Rohan, a high-ranking clergyman, that Marie Antoinette secretly desired the necklace. de La Motte forged papers and arranged for a prostitute to impersonate the queen to trick Rohan into buying the necklace for her.
After getting his hands on the necklace, de la Motte dismantled it and sent his diamonds to London, where they were sold on the black market. However, payments for the necklace never materialized and Boehmer and Bassenge went straight to the queen herself for a refund only for her to be completely unaware of the whole situation.
Arrests followed, trials were held, de la Motte was imprisoned, Rohan was acquitted, and Marie Antoinette was exonerated. However, despite the queen's innocence, the scandal was enough to damage her reputation and intensify public sentiment against her and the monarchy. The French Revolution followed...
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