Re: Ears of Wheat from the French Crown Jewels Archived Message
Posted by Arthur  on September 25, 2015, 1:39 am, in reply to "Re: Ears of Wheat from the French Crown Jewels"
Another reason for my scepticism is that the wheat-ear tiara is not recorded in the French Crown Jewels inventories, and did not appear in the auction of the Crown Jewels in 1887.
As pointed out by Lorenzo, Bernard Morel, in his book about the French Crown Jewels, mentions three diamond wheat-ear parures:
- a group of 43 diamond wheat ears (among whom 5 big ones et 38 smaller ones), which were part of Empress Joséphine's personal jewels at the beginning of her husband's reign (page 260 of Morel's book).
At her death in 1814, the main part of Joséphine's diamond parure (including the wheat ears) was not in her jewel collection anymore, which can let us think that these jewels had been either disposed of, or given, prior to Joséphine's death, to her children (page 266).
- in 1812, Napoleon completed the diamond parure of the Crown Jewels' collection (made in 1810 for his new bride, Empress Marie-Louise) with 150 wheat ears in diamonds. According to Morel (pages 276-277), these wheat ears were of eight different sizes and were made by Nitot (the ancestor of Chaumet) and were used to ornate the Empress' dress or hair.
These are probably the wheat ears that Chaumet identifies as the ones of the tiara currently exhibited in Paris. The problem is that all the Crown Jewels made under Napoleon's reign were, after he was overturned and the return of the Bourbon Kings on the French throne, dismantled to create new Crown parures for King's Louis XVIII's niece, the Duchess of Angoulême (then France's de facto First Lady, as both King Louis XVIII and King Charles X were widowers).
- during the 'Restauration', i.e. the time of the Bourbon Kings, new jewels were created with the stones of the dismantled jewels of the Napoleonic past. In 1824, 156 ears of wheat in diamonds were delivered for the Duchess of Angoulême by Crown jeweller Ménière, totalizing 9,175 brilliants for a total of 1,062 carats (page 313). These are probably the ears of wheat worn by Empress Eugénie on her wedding dress (page 353). Yet, all the diamond jewels of the Crown's collection were soon dismantled again, to create new jewels more in the fashion of mid-19th century. No jewel in the form of ears of wheat was recorded in the Crown Jewels inventories until the 1887 auction.
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