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It began life as a suite created by a husband for his new wife. Napoleon commissioned the emerald and diamond crown, necklace, and earrings for his second wife Marie Louise. Some believe they were a wedding gift, others a push present to the woman who bore him his long awaited heir. The necklace and earrings are among the eight pieces stolen from the Louvre in a brazen heist that took place the morning of Sunday, October 19. They had been on display in the Galerie d’Apollon, a testament to the efforts of the Friends of the Louvre society to reassemble the collection that had been sold at auction in 1887 in an attempt by the third republic to rid the country of any evidence of its imperial past. These particular pieces had, for many years, stayed within Marie Louise’s family. She had been spared Naopoleon’s exile and by treaty was allowed to keep the jewels deemed to be part of her personal collection, including these emeralds. Documentation becomes difficult to trace accurately, but at some point the emerald necklace and earrings become part of the collection of Liliane de Rothschild, a woman known for her penchant for passion for 18th century history and Marie Antoinette memorabilia. When she died in 2003, the obituary in Le Figaro lauded her taste and generosity: “She was a patron as generous as she was discreet,” said Maurice Druon, an academic and member of the Académie Française.
“How many national collections have benefited from her donations, how many important works did she put in our most beautiful galleries, how many institutions did she support with an active and constant attention,” Druon said. The New York Times obituary also noted her deep knowledge of Rothschild family history, her wit and composure, and a friendship with Greta Garbo.
In 2004, the Friends of the Louvre bought the earrings and necklace back from her descendants for 3.7 million euros, said to be the highest price ever paid for a museum for single pieces of jewelry at that point. And now—gone in less than ten minutes. And what of the crown that was once a part of the suite? It was sold to Van Cleef & Arpels in the 1950s and was displayed in their windows, attesting to the interest, then and now, for stones with royal provenance. At some point the emeralds were replaced with Persian turquoise, and the emeralds sold separately—and very successfully—in other smaller pieces, again proof of the power of provenance. The tiara, now with the turquoise, was back at the Louvre for an exhibit in 1962, but in 1971 it’s then-owner Marjorie Merriweather Post gifted it to the Smithsonian, where it remains on view. And those Napoleonic era emeralds that once adorned it? They sometimes, though rarely, come up at auction, but some love to speculate that their own emerald ring might have once belonged to Napoleon and his royal bride.
(aol)
