Again Arthur, thanks so much for the wonderful pictures and explanations.
I was at the Louvre about a month and a half ago, in the Appolon Gallerie, and I could see the Sapphire and diamond parure in the flesh, after about 15 or 20 years. The tiara is so tiny and delicate! A lot of the elements of the tiara are crooked and I believe that if it was to be worn again, the frame would have to be redone or the whole tiara re-mounted.
Actually, the whole parure looks much smaller in person that what I thought when seeing it on picture - my memory from 20 years ago had vanished I suppose -, but then I had to remember that Madame was a small women, and that if I think about her neck, then the size of the jewels I saw make sense.
In any case, I spent about an hour looking at the displays in the Appolon Gallerie, and could not have enough!!
--Previous Message-- : I think that the Louvre's information is : partly erroneous, and that they are : confusing the tiaras of the two parures. : : Marie-Amélie's portrait by Hersent is the : one posted by Baxter. Judging from the : Queen's age, and also the crown on the : throne's back, without the fleurs-de-lys, : the painting probably dates back to the : 1830s. But certainly not 1863. : As it was customary for royal portraits, : there are several replicas of this portrait. : For instance, the first picture is now in : Chantilly, while the second picture is in : Versailles: : : : : : When he wrote his book about the French : Crown Jewels ( Les Joyaux de la Couronne de : France , 1988), Bernard Morel could get an : exceptional access to the Orleans House : Archives, including an inventory of Queen : Marie-Amelie's jewels made in 1839. The : sapphire and diamond parure described in : this inventory included: : 1) a big diadem, "articulated" : with nine main elements (I think it means : nine detachable elements) : 2) a necklace of eight large sapphires : surrounded by diamonds, with diamond chain : drops inbetween : 3) a pair of earrings with sapphire and : diamond buttons and sapphire briolette drops : 4) a small "Sévigné" brooch made : of three sapphires, among them a : "square-oval"-shaped one, : surrounded with diamonds. : These four elements had been bought i the : late 1810s/early 1820s by Marie-Amelie's : husband, King Louis-Philippe (then Duke of : Orleans), from Queen Hortense, the then : exiled daughter of the late Empress : Josephine. The 1839 inventory mentioned : three more elements, which were later : additions to the sapphire parure: : 5) a bracelet made of a large clear : sapphire surrounded with brilliants, and six : rows of a total of 198 fine pearls : 6) another bracelet made of a very : beautiful sapphire surrounded with : brilliants with ornamented diamond chain : 7) a "comb-crown" (" : peigne-couronne ") of 15 sapphires, 66 : pearls and diamonds. : : On the portrait of Queen Marie-Amelie by : Hersent, as posted by Baxter and above, we : can clearly identify the sapphire, pearl and : diamond "comb-crown" (#7), the : necklace (#2), the earrings (#3) and the : small "Sévigné" brooch (#4). : The tiara described in #1 is very probably : worn on this portrait as the eight brooches : pinned on the dress and the lowest of the : corsage brooches. : : Now, what were the whereabouts of this : parure after 1839? : : Five of the nine elements of the tiara (#1) : were mounted as tiara, the form under which : it was worn by the wives of all the Heads of : the French Royal Family until 1985. With the : necklace (#2) and the earrings (#3), they : are now in the Louvre Museum. : : One of the four remaining elements of the : original tiara (#1) was slightly : transformed, mainly with the addition of an : extra pear-shaped sapphire drop at the : bottom, to create a larger corsage brooch, : which is now also in the Louvre Museum. : : : : The three remaining elements of the original : tiara (#1) were also slightly transformed : (by jeweller Bapst in 1846, according to : Bernard Morel), with additional pearl and : diamond motifs, to create three large : corsage brooches, which along the : "comb-coronet" (#7) and another : pair of sapphire, pearl and diamond : earrings, formed the second parure, : auctioned off by the Count of Paris in 1996. : The scroll-motifs of these three brooches : are indeed strikingly similar to the ones of : the elements of the tiara of the Louvre's : parure. : : : : The whereabouts of the following jewels are : still unclear: the small "Sévigné" : brooch (#4) and the two bracelets (#5 and : #6). Maybe they were dismantled to create : the earrings of the second parure, or the : sapphire, diamond and pearl buttons at the : top of two of the three corsage brooches of : the second parure? : : On the other hand, the origin of the two : small brooches of the Louvre's parure is : unclear. The one with a rectangular shape : could possibly be the : "square-oval" sapphire described : in the small "Sévigné" brooch : (#4). Of the second parure, the origin of : the large octogonal brooch, as well of the : earrings, is unclear too. : : :
on September 1, 2015, 2:47 am, in reply to "