Some of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry that once belonged to Napoléon's wife, Joséphine Bonaparte, are now owned by the Swedish royal family.

Among them is a tiara set with antique-looking cameos, which both Crown Princess Victoria and her mother, Queen Silvia, wore at their weddings.

The diadem was also made for a wedding: This is why the headband that Napoléon commissioned his court jeweler Marie-Étienne Nitot in 1809 shows the goddess of love Venus on a cameo.

It is easy to tell how the diadem and many other jewels came to Sweden: Joséphine's granddaughter, who was also called Joséphine, was married to the Swedish King Oskar I.

Peter-Philipp Schmitt

Editor in the section “Germany and the World”.

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Other pieces of jewelry that once belonged to the French Empress cannot be easily traced back to her.

This also applies to two parries that were auctioned at Sotheby's in London on Tuesday and which, as the auction house writes, “according to tradition, once belonged to Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763 to 1814), the wife of Napoléon Bonaparte (1769 to 1821) ".

"À la Joséphine"

The style, which is also called “à la Joséphine”, at least fits perfectly.

After the French Revolution, Napoléon was only too happy to borrow from antiquity and saw himself in the tradition of the Roman emperors and the medieval empire of Charlemagne.

Napoléon's imperial crown, named "Couronnes de Charlemagne" after Charlemagne, therefore adorned a large number of gems and cameos with portraits of Roman emperors in particular.

The antique or only antique gemstones with their engravings were also very popular with Napoléon's wife. In paintings like the one by Andrea Appiani from 1808, she presented herself almost like a Roman. Joséphine wore gems and cameos as chains and belt buckles, as hairpins and earrings, and also liked to work them into her countless tiaras. Most of the jewelery items were gifts from her second husband, the emperor, and some came to her in Paris via Napoléon's youngest sister Caroline, then Queen of Naples.

The two jewelry combinations that have now been sold could also have been gifts from Carolines. They were both made in Paris around 1808, but are partly set with real antique gems and cameos probably from Italy. Joséphine collected jewelry and especially these stones with their raised reliefs (cameos) or their deeply incised representations (gems). Shortly before her death and after Napoléon's fall in 1814, she could have cashed parts of her jewelry. One of the buyers, so it is assumed, was Edward Lascelles, the first Earl of Harewood, who was staying in Paris at the time and who had become rich through the slave trade, among other things. With him, the two parades came to the United Kingdom and a family that married into the English royal family at the beginning of the 20th century:Henry Lascelles, the sixth Earl of Harewood, was the son-in-law of King George V and thus a great-uncle by marriage of Queen Elizabeth II.

Six-digit sums for the jewelry

The tiaras now offered are said to come from the Lascelles family. Sotheby's writes that they were part of a private British collection for 150 years. The one headband made of gold and enamel, which shows cameos from the 18th century (Zeus and Dionysus) and the 16th century (Medusa, Pan and Gäa), was verifiably made by Jacques-Ambroise Oliveras. Its estimated value: £ 100,000 to £ 200,000. The surcharge for the three-piece set including the original box was awarded at 126,000 pounds with fees (around 150,000 euros). The jeweler of the second diadem is unknown. It is also made of gold and enamel and is equipped with a total of 25 gems, some of which are probably antique. The parure includes a pair of earrings, a comb and a belt ornament. Including the box, the value was between 200,000 and 300.Estimated £ 000, the hammer was sold at £ 450,600 with fees (530,000 euros). Both buyers are unknown.

A stamp was also auctioned on Tuesday.

More precisely: the world's first postage stamp.

The stamp with Queen Victoria's profile comes from the very first print.

Sotheby's announced that she established the postage system as we know it on May 1, 1840.

Estimated value: four to six million pounds.

A buyer for the imperforated and very well preserved “One Penny Black”, which was only in use for one year at the time, was not found, however.