Marie Antoinette Pendant Sold For $36 Million At Auction

[appalachiablue]

Source: France24

A pearl and diamond pendant owned by Marie Antoinette before she was beheaded during the French Revolution sold for $36 million at an auction on Wednesday, shattering its pre-sale estimate of up to $2 million.

The Sotheby's auction at an ultra-luxurious hotel on the banks of Lake Geneva saw feverish bidding for a 10-piece collection owned by the ill-fated queen, featuring jewels unseen in public for two centuries.

The 10 items, which had been estimated to fetch a total of roughly $3 million, sold for a combined sum of nearly $43 million, Sotheby's said. A diamond brooch pegged to go for roughly $80,000 (70,000 euros) sold for $1.75 million, excluding fees, one of several pieces that brought in more than 20 times its estimated worth.

But the highlight was the pendant featuring an oval diamond and drop-shaped pearl, which Sotheby's said went to an anonymous, private buyer, without giving further details. Sotheby's also said the pendant set a new record price for a pearl jewel sold at auction. -MORE...


Read more: https://www.france24.com/en/20181115-marie-antoinette-france-pendant-sold-36-million-auction-sothebys-geneva

---

A natural pearl & diamond pendant once owned by Marie Antoinette is held by a model before auction at Sotheby's in Geneva, Nov. 7, 2018.

Marie Antoinette's Jewels Up For Auction, Deutsche Welle, Nov. 14, 2018.
https://www.dw.com/en/marie-antoinettes-jewels-up-for-auction/g-45962831



Pearls, diamonds and initial ring with lock of Marie' hair.

Treasures Of The French Royal Family To Be Auctioned In Paris, 2015
https://www.france24.com/en/20150926-pictures-treasures-french-royal-family-be-auction-paris-sotheby-comte-paris

[Power 2 the People]

1. I wonder who the purchaser was?

[appalachiablue]

2. Wild! Maybe...

[Ilsa]

8. I really despise that pic on a gut level.

We stuff backpacks for school kids to take home on weekends so they don't go hungry, and that snooty mail order bride makes a pic like this. I hope she chokes on it.

[Power 2 the People]

10. +1

[LudwigPastorius]

12. Well, we all know she wasn't into Donald for his..

errr....hand size.

[Marie Marie]

13. What a disgusting picture. All that wealth in exchange for marrying a toad.

[lagomorph777]

19. A billionaire spending Trump's Billionaire Tax Cut. "Let Them Eat Cake!"

[wiggs]

3. immoral inequality. nt

[3catwoman3]

4. Owning an item with a lock of her hair...

...seems rather creepy to me.

[appalachiablue]

5. Not my taste but the custom then. It should be in a museum.

[3catwoman3]

7. I agree about the museum.

Owning anything that belonged to someone who was beheaded is just too macabre for me. I’ve got the shivers even thinking about it.

[appalachiablue]

11. One summer as college students my sister & I

traveled to Europe and we saw the prison cell in the La Conciergerie, the old medieval prison in Paris where Marie was held before her execution in 1783. Was it 'authentic'! Small, dank and dark with her original Bible on a small table and a few other artifacts. I felt like I was in Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities.' King Louis had been executed and their two youngest children died young as well. The eldest, daughter Marie survived to marry but had no children.

What a world then!



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conciergerie



Marie Antoinette on the way to the guilliotine, drawn by French artist Jacques-Louis David, Oct. 16, 1793, Paris.

[Nitram]

18. I own several lockets with locks our ancestor's hair, beautifully braided.

Not creepy at all. I would balk at a finger, nose, or ear.

[3catwoman3]

23. The manner of her demise is what...

...makes it cringe-worthy for me. I would envision the blade of the guiiiotine coming down every time I looked at the brooch.

[Nitram]

30. OK, I see your point. None of my ancestors, that I know of, have been guillotined.

[msongs]

6. darn I was gonna buy those but I forgot about the auction nt

[Retrograde]

25. I was having a hard time deciding

whether to bid on this or on the Hopper painting, so I just stayed home. Besides, where would I wear it?

[Astraea]

9. Well, we all know what happened to her...

Congratulations to the lucky .001%er!!

[lagomorph777]

20. May the purchaser and their friends follow in Marie's proud footsteps.

[tikka]

14. Too many people have way too much money nt

[milestogo]

15. "pendant owned by Marie Antoinette before she was beheaded"

I guess its difficult to wear a pendant after you've been beheaded.

[Nitram]

17. Yeah, without a head and neck, it keeps falling off...

[lagomorph777]

21. That's disgusting!

[littlemissmartypants]

24. Maybe

They couldn't remove the pearls until the head was. Pesky thing was in the way.

[jberryhill]

28. My son got his head caught in a potty seat when he was a toddler

We had a devil of a time getting that off of him.

In retrospect, cutting the head off would have saved a lot of time.

[jberryhill]

27. They make it sound like she was wearing it to the event

But that thing is way too gaudy for a beheading. Hoop earrings add a nice touch, though.

[Nitram]

16. More evidence of how well the wealthy are doing.

[lagomorph777]

22. Trump's Billionaire Tax Cut message to the rest of us: "Let Them Eat Cake!"

[jberryhill]

26. To be fair, they were beheaded

[Nitram]

31. I'm referring to the weathy who bought Marie's jewelry for $34 million more than expected.

I don't want to guillotine them, I just want to tax them.

[jberryhill]

32. Guillotines are more effective

I mean, the folks in France just wanted to tax them too. But they kept saying "non".

[Cal Carpenter]

29. Could buy a lot of cake with that money

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

36. Yeah, mega cake party

[EarthFirst]

33. Fu*k the ultra wealthy!

I hope these pieces bring nothing but misery and misfortune to those who purchased them!

[Nitram]

34. My sentiments exactly. Think of all the good that money could have done if spent compassionately.

[tavernier]

35. She had a sad and tragic life despite the wealth,

and she wasn’t the cruel person she was depicted to be and she never made the cake statement. The times I’ve been to France, the people speak very kindly of her, owing to a better understanding of that period of history.
I think her jewelry should be a part of French history, and in a proper museum. I recall that Paris has a few of those.