Diamond bracelets that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, King Louis XVI’s wife who was executed at the guillotine during the French revolution, have sold for €7.2 million at auction.
ADVERTISEMENTA pair of diamond bracelets that belonged to Marie Antoinette were sold for 7.46 million Swiss francs (€7.2 million) at auction.
The bracelets were among other pieces of rare jewelry from the wife of the last king of France Louis XVI, who like her husband met her fate at the guillotine during the French revolution.
They sold for much more than the presale estimate of between 2 million and 4 million Swiss francs on Tuesday evening at a Christie’s auction in Geneva.
The final price included taxes and fees on top of the hammer price. The buyer was not identified.
Featuring 112 diamonds, they each weigh 97 grams and include silver and gold.
After Marie Antoinette’s death in 1793, the bracelets that had been commissioned some 17 years earlier were passed on from her daughter Marie-Therese and kept within royal lineage for over 200 years, Christie’s said.
On Wednesday, as part of regular Geneva jewelry auctions, rival house Sotheby’s is set to put under the hammer a 26.8-carat oval sapphire surrounded by diamonds, and matching ear clips that once belonged to Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia.
Those pieces were whisked out of Russia during the country’s 1917 revolution.
The trio is expected to garner as much as 480,000 francs (€454,209).
