Marie Antoinette pendant fetches record US$36mil
GenevA: A pearl and diamond pendant owned by Marie Antoinette before she was beheaded during the French Revolution sold for US$36mil (RM151mil) at an auction, shattering its pre-sale estimate of up to US$2mil (RM8mil).
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 US$3mil (RM12.5mil), sold on Wednesday for a combined sum of nearly US$43mil ( RM180mil), Sotheby’s said.
A diamond brooch pegged to go for roughly US$80,000 (RM335,559) sold for US$1.75mil (RM7.3mil), 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.
“Marie Antoinette’s pendant is simply irreplaceable and the price it fetched is about far more than the gem itself,” Eddie LeVian, the chief executive of jewellers Le Vian, said in a statement.
“It captures everyone’s imagination,” he added.
“This is the ultimate proof, if it were needed, that the world’s ultra high net worth individuals love rare, natural fancy coloured diamond and pearls jewels as investments, and especially those with royal provenance.”
Marie Antoinette, who historians say was reviled by much of the French public over her lavish spending in the midst of a national financial crisis, was guillotined in Paris in October 1793 at the age of 37.
After her death, her jewels followed a winding path highlighting European power dynamics in the 18th and 19th centuries.