A pink diamond that may have been handed down to the daughter of Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France, is expected to sell for as much as $5 million at auction next month.
The Marie-Therese diamond will be auctioned in Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sals on June 17, in New York.
The stone is a 10-carat diamond and has been set in a ring by jeweller Joel Arthur Rosenthal, aka JAR. It had previously been set in a hairpin and owned by the Austrian imperial family.
It was owned by Duchess Marie-Therese, the eldest daughter and eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
A portrait of Marie-Therese who was exiled from France, before marrying back into the French royal family and perhaps even briefly holding the throne herself.
The young duchess was imprisoned for a while during the French Revolution. Both her parents were executed. She was released in 1795, and allowed to travel to Austria (her mother’s birth country) in exchange for French prisoners of war.
She later lived in Scotland and returned to France when the monarchy was restored. Some have claimed she was briefly queen during the 1830 revolution when Charles X abdicated in favour of her husband, who then abdicated himself some 20 minutes later.
Marie-Therese certainly owned this jewel. It has long been reported that Marie Antoinette gave some of her favourite jewels to a servant in 1791. The Queen was never able to reclaim them and it is thought some were passed to Marie-Therese.
The stone has stayed in the deposed French royal family’s possession until its auction in 1996, in Geneva.
The diamond, impressive in its own right, has been given a modern setting by jeweller JAR. Image courtesy of Christie’s.
Although the Marie-Therese stone is attracting much attention, it is not expected to be the most valuable item at the sale.
The Blue Belle, with a top estimate of $12 million, also has royal links. It is a necklace built around a 392.5-carat Sri Lankan sapphire that was bought as a coronation gift for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother but was never given to her.
Last year, a necklace that may have been linked to a famous scandal that helped discredit Marie Antoinette was auctioned for £3.8 million. Although there was no direct proof linking the piece to The Affair of the Diamond Necklace, the piece nearly doubled its estimate.
If this piece follows the same pattern it will be one of the most substantial diamond sales of the year.
