A diamond-studded pearl pendant of the former French queen Marie-Antoinette has been auctioned for 28.1 million euros. After a 14-minute bidding contest, a man in Geneva was awarded the contract. According to the auction house Sotheby's is a record price for a pearl. The estimate was previously at 0.88 to 1.78 million euros.
The auction house had on Wednesday evening a total of nine lots of jewelry on offer, which were in the meantime in the possession of the former Queen. The jewels brought in a total of 32.6 million euros. In addition to the pearl pendant, a three-row pearl necklace with a diamond-studded buckle (1.67 million euros) and a diamond-studded brooch (1.54 million euros) were sold at a particularly high price.
REUTERS
This diamond ring with the initials MA achieved around 392,470 euros
Queen Marie-Antoinette and her husband Louis XVI. had been executed in 1793 during the French Revolution with the hatchet (more about why Marie-Antoinette was so hated in revolutionary France, read here). The jewelry was smuggled abroad shortly before the arrest of the ruling couple and was owned by the noble family Bourbon-Parma for 200 years. Just as long, the jewelry had not been seen in public.
At the auction on Wednesday evening, a total of 100 lots from different centuries came to the call. According to Sotheby's, a total of almost 47 million euros was achieved.