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Diamonds of Empress Eugenie 1873
Posted by Janet on January 8, 2022, 11:59 pm
exhibited at the World Fair in Vienna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1873_Vienna_World%27s_Fair) and the photographs are amongst many from the World Fair currently held in the Vienna Museum.
These appear to be some pretty chunky diamonds, I wonder if perhaps these form part of the jewels that were left behind in France (and perhaps sold by the government?) or perhaps more likely part of the auction by the Empress herself (given the timing) in 1872 at Christies.
Is anything more known about this impressive collection?
The picture of the Mellerio display from 1867 (https://orderofsplendor.blogspot.com/2017/02/tiara-thursday-queen-margheritas.html) at the World fair is well known but I have never before seen any pictures of other displays they did until a few days ago the Mellerio instagram showed a picture which had been submitted to them by one of their followers - I don't what that section at the top is called, its the one where they have moving pictures and you click on it.
Anyway someone was looking at the Mellerio photographic archives (why oh why aren't these generally pictures released so we can marvel at the beauty and talent!!!) and they tweeted this (or whatever the Instagram equivalent is called) and then Mellerio retweeted it. The link doesn't seem to work anymore, so I uploaded but it belongs to Mellerio and whoever submitted it to them, apologies I didn't catch her name. Its a shame the picture is on an angle but its still shows some truly staggering items of historical jewels with some HUGE stones and impressive settings and I wanted to share.
This display is from 1873 at the Vienna world fair - look at the size of those pearls and that huge brooch above it, presumably emeralds. The necklace in the far bottom corner also seems to include some huge emeralds and diamonds.
I think that the tiara at the top centre ended up with the Bourbon Parma/Two Sicilies family (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8b/5c/62/8b5c6245cfe72c9a5406b49b913b47fe.jpg) and the tiara to the left, which looks like peacock feathers is based on this illustration - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/39/70/5e/39705efd0b646575690bac39baa22302.jpg