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    Re: The French Crown Jewels | The Imperial Comb | Hortense Diamond Archived Message

    Posted by Lorenzo on September 24, 2015, 1:21 am, in reply to "Re: The French Crown Jewels | The Imperial Comb | Hortense Diamond"


    You can see little white spots on the last picture. It shows the 3 diamonds and the 2 pampilles bought by Boucheron. i think it's from Vincent's book

    --Previous Message--
    : 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
    : "Pearl 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.
    :
    :
    :
    :
    :


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