"Marie Antoinette Diamond Necklace" Sells for $4.8m
November 18, 24
(IDEX Online) - An historic necklace that has been linked to Marie Antoinette sold for $4.8m at Sotheby's Geneva, smashing its pre-auction high estimate of $2.8m.
Seven bidders battled it out before the hammer finally fell on what has been described as one of the most magnificent and intact Georgian jewels in private hands.
The necklace - over 300 carats of diamonds, believed to be from India's famed Golconda mines - survived for at least 240 years, through times when such pieces were routinely broken up into individual gems and repurposed.
"The anonymous winning bidder is now in possession of perhaps one of the most talked about necklaces of the year," said Sotheby's after the Royal and Noble Jewels Live Sale on 13 November.
The necklace had been in the possession of an Asian collector for almost 50 years.
Sotheby's said some of the diamonds may have come from the famous necklace linked to what became the scandal of the "Affair of the Necklace" which contributed to the advent of the French revolution (1789 to 1799) and eventually to the death of Marie Antoinette, the nation's last queen.
The precise origin of the necklace is unknown, but Sotheby's said: "Such an important and historic antique jewel could only have been created for royalty or a high-ranking aristocrat at one of the glittering courts of the ancient regime - most likely the French or English court."
Pic courtesy Sotheby's.