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FILE – In this archival photo from Friday, October 12, 2018, the Queen Marie Antoinette pearls and diamonds pendant, dating from the eighteenth century, is on display at Sotheby's in New York. A large pendant of natural pearls in the shape of drops sold at the auction price of 32 million dollars at an auction of jewelry that belonged to the French Queen Marie Antoinette, price that Sotheby's asks for a price record for a pearl. The "Pearl of Queen Marie Antoinette", a diamond and pearl pendant, was one of the block's flagship offerings at the Sotheby's sale of jewelry from the Bourbon-Parma dynasty on Wednesday November 14th. (AP Photo / Richard Drew, file) The Associated Press
By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated press
GENEVA (AP) – A large drop-shaped pendant sold in the amount of more than $ 36 million, Wednesday, at a rare auction of jewelry that once belonged to French Queen Marie Antoinette, which Sotheby & # 39; s announcement at a record price for a pearl.
The diamond and pearl shaped pendant "The Pearl of Queen Marie Antoinette" was one of the flagship products of the sale when Sotheby's sale of jewelry from the Bourbon-Parma dynasty in Geneva.
Sotheby's has presented this sale as a unique opportunity to recover souvenirs and jewelry belonging to the Bourbon-Parma dynasty for generations. Some of Marie Antoinette's jewelry has not been seen in public for 200 years – until now.
Like many of Marie-Antoinette's 10 old pieces for sale, the pendant erased the pre-auction estimate – in her case, between $ 1 million and $ 2 million. It was sold at hammer price of 32 million Swiss francs ($ 32 million), but with the premium and the buyer's fees, the total sales amounted to over 36, $ 1 million.
The buyer wanted to remain anonymous, said the auction house.
In total, Marie-Antoinette's coins raised nearly $ 43 million.
Marie-Antoinette's hammered diamond and pearl jewels embody the distant, pre-revolutionary opulence of the French kings defeated by the uprising. Wife of King Louis XVI, she was executed in the revolutionary French fervor in 1793.
Before letting herself go to the guillotine, she had secretly transferred abroad, abroad, some of her most valuable possessions, in the midst of the revolutionary fervor that finally marked the beginning of the end of the secular monarchy of France.
"The Marie-Antoinette pendant is simply irreplaceable," said Eddie LeVian, CEO of Le Vian jewelry, before the sale. "It's more than jewelry: Marie-Antoinette's jewels are inextricably linked to the cause of the French Revolution."
The Queen's jewelry also included a set of pearl and diamond earrings, a diamond brooch and a necklace of natural pearls and diamonds. A monogram ring set with diamonds bears a lock of Marie-Antoinette's hair.
Almost all of these lots far exceed the pre-sales estimates, which testifies to the difficulty of evaluating the value of such rare jewelry.
"It was really the Bourbon-Parma factor, and certainly the Marie-Antoinette factor," said Daniela Mascetti, president of the Sotheby's Group for Jewelry in Europe. "The prices have really skyrocketed.Some items have sold, I think, 20 or 25 times more than the estimate of the presale."
Andres White Correns, director of jewelry, added: "At the press conference of this sale, we stated that it would act from the sale of this century – and I think that the results of this evening prove that's the case. "
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