A diamond necklace worn at two British coronations and possibly linked to Marie Antoinette will be auctioned this November with a £2.1 million top estimate.
The 300 carat, 500 diamond, 3-rope necklace will be sold by Sotheby’s at their Royal and Noble sale in Geneva on November 11.
It was worn at the coronations of Queen Elizabeth II and King George VI.
Some of the stones in the piece may be linked to The Affair of the Diamond Necklace, one of the most important incidents in the run-up to the French Revolution.
The scandal (in 1784 and 1785) involved an extremely opulent diamond necklace made for Madame Du Barry, the mistress of King Louis XV, a cardinal, a conwoman, sex workers, occultists and Marie Antoinette.
Although Marie Antoinette was a blameless victim in the scheme, during which the necklace was broken up and stones sold, a public trial put the opposite idea into the public’s imagination.
A perception of Marie Antoinette as out-of-touch and feckless helped delegitimise the Bourbon monarchy.
Marie Antoinette, whose lifestyle – or how it was perceived – was a major factor in the run-up to the French Revolution.
This necklace is known as the Anglessey Tassles because it was owned by the Marquess of Anglesey family.
The link to the French necklace affair goes back at least to the 1940s, when politician Henry “Chips” Channon recorded it in his diaries.
The Anglesey family sold the piece sometime in the 1960s.
It has been exhibited in 1959 and again in 1979. Then, at the American Museum of Natural History’s Bicentennial Exhibition it was dated to 1776 and attributed to jewellers Collingwood. It was claimed that George III had given the necklace to the Duchess of Marlborough.
The piece is “a pair of old cushion-shaped diamond tassels connected by three rows of collet-set old cushion-shaped and circular-cut diamonds, length approximately 670mm, fitted case.”
Andres White Correal, head of the royal and noble sales at Sotheby’s, told the PA news agency: “I think the most important part, other than the value of the diamonds, is the fact that it has survived.
“You only see these things in museums when it has been from royal families who are still reigning, like the collections here in Britain, or when you go to former imperial and royal collections in places like St Petersburg or Moscow, where you can see the collections of the tsar.
“So yes, you go to a museum, and you can see a jewel of this level. Normally, you don’t see it in private hands.”
The most expensive jewellery items are often single, enormous stones.
In April 2017, the Pink Star diamond realised $71.2 million at auction in Hong Kong. It is a 59.60-carat stone. The Oppenheimer Blue sold for $57.5 million at auction in May 2016. It was 14.62 carats, but blue diamonds are extremely rare.
A diamond and pearl pendant owned by Marie Antoinette was sold for $36.2 million in November 2018.
Whether or not the Marie Antoinette link to the Anglesey Tassles is believed, it adds interest to an item that has enormous intrinsic value.
The item has a $1.8m – $2.8m (£1.3m – £2.1m) guide price range and who its next custodians are will be decided at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Geneva on November 11.
