Diamond pendant with large drop pearl of Queen Marie-Antoinette |Royal Imperial Jewels | Jewelery Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria
Known for her extravagance and the splendor and opulence of her court, Queen Marie-Antoinette was often pictured with pearls. Always a symbol of wealth and status, natural pearls were valued for their beauty and rarity by royal families in eighteenth-century Europe.
The collection includes beautiful jewels, including a stunning diamond pendant that holds a natural pearl of exceptional size of 26 mm x 18 mm, with an estimated $ 1 million-2 million.
The splendor and opulence of the French court are also a pair of drop-shaped natural pearls and a very beautiful necklace with 331 natural pearls
In addition, this collection includes a series of jewels that unite several royal provenances and at the same time show how the stunning stones of the family collection have been varied over the centuries according to the tastes of each generation.
In 1792, the royal family was imprisoned in the Parisian Temple, a fortified former monastery complex. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were executed in 1793 by the guillotine and their 10-year-old son Louis XVII died in captivity. Their only surviving child, Marie-Thérèse de France 1778-1851, "Madame Royale", was released in December 1795 after three years in solitary confinement.
After learning of the death of her mother and her brother, she was sent to Austria. On her arrival in Vienna in 1796, she received from her cousin, the emperor, the jewelry of her mother.
Since Madame Royale had no biological children, she bequeathed some of her jewels to her niece and adoptive daughter Louise of France 1819-1864, Duchess of Parma and granddaughter of Charles X, King of France 1757-1836. Among them was this diamond and pearl pendant.
Louise Marie Thérèse d'Artois, royal princess of France, is pictured above with the stunning diamond and pearl drop pendant on her pearl necklace. Louise of France, in turn, bequeathed the jewelery to her son Robert I (1848-1907), the last reigning Duke of Parma. When the underaged Robert, Louise's eldest son, was proclaimed in 1854 as the new Duke Robert I, Louise took over the government.