Re: The French Crown Jewels | The Imperial Comb | Hortense Diamond Archived Message
Posted by Arthur  on September 23, 2015, 7:08 pm, in reply to "The French Crown Jewels | The Imperial Comb | Hortense Diamond"
Thank you, Ursula, for these beautiful pictures, and the history of this diamond comb.
I am puzzled about how such a comb, with all the diamonds dripping along the nape of the neck of a lady, would look like... but certainly, Empress Eugenie was perfectly able to manage it successfully!
I will add only a few comments and corrections, relying on Bernard Morel's book Les Joyaux de la Couronne de France, which is the reference book about the French Crown jewels:
- the "Hortensia" diamond was acquired by King Louis XIV, probably in 1678, but it was named "Hortensia" only under Napoleon I's reign, as a tribute to Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Empress Joséphine, and sister-in-law of Napoleon. Due to its particular colour and shape, it was saved from the desastrous auction of the French Crown jewels in 1887, and has been exhibited since then in the Louvre Museum.
- Morel dismisses the assertion that this pink diamond was bought by Louis XIV from the famous explorer Tavernier. Indeed, the largest pink diamond sold by Tavernier was "only" 14.51 carats, whereas the "Hortensia" weighs 21.32 carats; according to Morel, the "Hortensia" was probably cut by a gem retailer named Alvarez, who was one of Louis XIV's supplier and whose diamonds were reputed as "the most beautiful and the biggest ones then on the market"
- the "Hortensia" pink diamond must not be confounded with the "Peach blossom" diamond (in French: diamant "Fleur-de-Pêcher"), which is a different diamond. The "Peach Blossom" diamond was first recorded in the Crown Jewels Inventory of 1691 and had probably been bought recently from Alvarez. The inventory made one century later, in 1791, adds that its colour was the one of a peach blossom (hence the name), i.e. of pale pink, and that the weight of the stone was 25.53 carats. Morel describes it as "a large trapezoidal pear-shaped diamond with rounded corners", quite flat, whose cut was quite remarkable.
In the 1691 Inventory, the "Peach Blossom" diamond was mounted on a hat hook; in the later inventories, it was often unmounted, and could be used at will, e.g. as pendant. In the 19th century, it was also mounted on the tiara of Empress Marie-Louise's diamond parure (as the central top diamond of the tiara, see Marie-Louise's portrait below), on the crown of Charles X (as the central petal of one of the side lilies) and on the crown of Napoleon III (on the bandeau). During the 1887 auction, it was sold to Tiffany. The "Peach Blossom" diamond can be seen here, at the bottom right of the picture:
- according to Morel, there was only one of the "Mazarin" diamonds in the diamond comb with pampilles made for Empress Eugenie in 1856: the "Mazarin VIII", which is the third diamond of the top row of diamonds, from the left (it was bought in 1887 by Boucheron):
- none of the "Mazarin" diamonds was in the pampilles/fringes of Empress Eugénie's diamond comb. But the large marquise-shaped diamond (4th stone of the central pampille, on the picture above) had been bought by Louis XIV in 1678 from Tavernier; in 1887, it was bought by Tiffany.
|
|
