Famous Diamonds: Napoleon Diamond Necklace

Posted on Apr 7, 2014 in Diamonds in the News,

This stunning famous diamond necklace, set with approximately 263 carats of old-mine-cut diamonds, was a gift from Napoléon Bonaparte to his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise of the Austrian House of Habsburg, Empress of France. Following her death, the necklace remained in the family for generations.

The Napoleon Diamond Necklace, in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is set with 260 carats of old-mine cut diamonds. – Chip Clark, Courtesy Smithsonian Institution

As with many famous diamonds in this series, this necklace has an illustrious past. After changing hands multiple times within the family, then-owner Archduchess Maria Theresa sent the necklace to the Unites States in 1929 to be sold for an asking price of $450,000. Her agents for the transaction, which included her financially-ruined grand-nephew, sold the necklace for $60,000, sending $7,270 to Maria Theresa and keeping the rest for “expenses related to the sale.” The courts eventually returned the necklace to Maria Theresa, her grand-nephew went to jail, and the co-conspirators disappeared, their true identities never uncovered.

The Habsburg family did eventually sell the necklace in 1948 to a private individual. Through various transactions it found its way to New York jeweler Harry Winston who sold it to Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post, who donated the necklace to the Smithsonian Institution in 1962. It can now be viewed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

The necklace contains 234 colorless to near-coloress diamonds, the largest stone weighing approximately 10.40 carats. The diamonds have never been graded; however, infrared spectroscopy revealed that the majority of the significant diamonds are of the highest quality, demonstrating that the standards used 200 years ago to select the finest diamonds are similar to those still used today.