In March of 1791, Queen Marie Antoinette prepared for her escape from France. According to accounts written by her lady in waiting, Madame Campan, the queen spent an entire evening in the Tuileries Palace wrapping her diamonds, rubies and pearls in cotton and secreting them in a wooden chest.
Marie Antoinette wasn’t able to avoid her appointment with Madame La Guillotine, but the wooden chest remained intact. The cache of jewels made its way to Brussels, and then to Vienna, where it reached safety in the hands of the Austrian Emperor, Marie Antoinette’s nephew.
In October of 2018, this cache of royal jewels reached Sotheby’s New York. When they asked me if I wanted to come see the Bourbon Parma collection before it went back to Europe, it was a piece of cake to say oui.
This ring was from Marie Antoinette’s personal collection. It features the doomed Queen’s initials – MA – in diamonds and contains a lock of her hair.
More than one of you messaged me after I posted a video of this ring on my Instastory, asking if I was going to clean my finger with Holy Water or visit an exorcist to make sure that Marie Antoinette wasn’t going to haunt me for trying on her ring, but I absolutely loved getting to handle this piece.
Continue reading Wearing Marie Antoinette’s jewelry. at Diamonds in the Library.
from Diamonds in the Library https://ift.tt/2PbdueM
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