Featured Marie Antoinette's pearls up for grabs

Sotheby's auction of the Bourbon-Parma royal jewels scheduled for November.

https://www.independent.ie/world-ne...n-for-200-years-to-be-auctioned-37005523.html

 

Pretty.

 

I wonder where they have been for the last 200 years.

 

There's more info here (but not more pictures):
http://www.4-traders.com/SOTHEBYS-1...26760342/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=20180613

The Sotheby's page won't open for me.

The jewels will go on display next week in Milan, followed by an international tour before the auction.

Probably eye candy will be showing up online during all that.

I hear the catalog calling my name. With a collection like this, they'll be putting their best foot forward.

 

Very pretty pearls

 

I'm afraid my little change-purse certainly won't hold enough coinage to even get in the front door!!!!!

 

I was trying to determine Marie Antoinette's connection to this family.

Tells you at the end of this article.
https://www.dailysabah.com/life/201...-belonging-to-marie-antoinette-up-for-auction

 

For those who can't access the pages, some more lovelies:



The story of how they came to be in the possession of the family, and of the other Habsburg jewellery that is also to be auctioned, from http://www.4-traders.com/SOTHEBYS-1...26760342/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=20180613

"The impressive ensemble of jewels to be offered this autumn has an extraordinary story. In March 1791, King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and their children began to prepare their escape from France. According to accounts written by Marie Antoinette's lady in waiting, Madame Campan, the queen spent an entire evening in the Tuileries Palace wrapping all of her diamonds, rubies and pearls in cotton and placing them in a wooden chest. In the following days, the jewels were sent to Brussels, which was under the rule of the queen's sister, Archduchess Marie-Christine and which was home to Count Mercy Argentau. The count, the former Austrian Ambassador to Paris, was one of the only men who had retained the queen's trust. It was he who took delivery of the jewels and sent them on to Vienna, into the safe keeping of the Austrian Emperor, Marie Antoinette's nephew.

In 1792, the royal family was imprisoned in the Temple tower. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were executed by guillotine in 1793 and their 10-year old son, Louis XVII, died in captivity. The king and queen's only surviving child, Marie-Thérèse de France (1778-1851), "Madame Royale", was released in December 1795, after three years of solitary confinement. After learning of the deaths of her mother and brother, she was sent to Austria. Upon her arrival in Vienna in 1796, she was given her mother's jewels by her cousin, the emperor. Having borne no children of her own, Madame Royale bequeathed part of her jewellery collection to her niece and adopted daughter, Louise of France (1819-1864), Duchess of Parma and grand-daughter of Charles X, King of France (1757-1836), who in turn left them to her son, Robert I (1848-1907), the last ruling Duke of Parma.......

The collection also features a number of jewels that combine multiple royal provenances, showing how the impressive stones in the family collection were set in different designs throughout the centuries, according to the tastes of each successive generation. Made for Louise of France (1819-1864), grand-daughter of Charles X, King of France and mother of Robert I, Duke of Parma, a breath-taking diamond parure composed of 95 diamonds (est. $300,000-500,000) includes five solitaire diamonds that belonged to Marie-Antoinette, a large number of stones which adorned the sword of the Duke of Berry, son of Charles X and father of Louise (assassinated by an anti-royal Bonapartist in 1820) and a large pear-shaped diamond from the collection of the Archduchess Isabella of Austria, Princess of Croÿ (1856 -1931).......

Most of the jewels in the collection were given to Robert I (1848-1907), the last sovereign Duke of Parma and Piacenza, by his mother, Louise of France (1819-1864), grand-daughter of King Charles X of France and great-niece of Marie Antoinette. Robert I also received exceptional jewels from his paternal grand-mother, Maria-Teresa of Savoy, Duchess of Parma (1803-1879), including a pair of diamond girandole earrings (est. $150,000-250,000). For her wedding to Robert I, Princess Maria Pia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1849-1882) received from her husband's grand-father, Charles II of Parma a large diamond pendeloque brooch (est. $ 25,000-35,000"

 

Archduchess Isabella of Austria, Princess of Croÿ, I knew that name rang a bell, so I googled her name. Here she is with some of the Habsburg jewels:

She looks like a 19th century Marie Antoinette, but looks can be deceiving. Unlike Marie Antoinette she was a great humanitarian, and spent most of her life setting up schools and charities and set up an organisation to support Roma Gypsy culture.

 

That's an interesting picture, not just because of it's connection to this family, but also because, a while ago, someone was asking about a miniature portrait that showed a woman wearing the same kind of collar.

 

In this case it is one of those revival fashions, based on 16th century fashion, if I am correct.

 

Marie certainly had some very delicious 'glitter'

 

She is supposed to have said "Let them eat cake" when the peasants were starving.
It's debatable though.

 

She was not popular, though even Napoleon said she got a raw deal. An even bigger factor was the affair of the Queen's necklace, an elaborate scam to steal a diamond necklace so extravagant that even the Monarchy could not afford its purchase. The scammers got the necklace, Marie Antoinette got the blame.

 

You might be thinking about a bit that Marko started with post #237 in the Cameo Show & Tell thread. It was about this sort of thing:



You made some posts around the same time & might have seen.

 

This is the picture I had in mind:


But I don't know who posted it, or when, and I doubt that the photo in this thread would add anything to that discussion.