Editor’s Note
A remarkable piece of history comes to auction this month. This ring, carrying the legacy of Marie Antoinette and her daughter, is not just a jewel but a tangible link to a dramatic chapter of the French Revolution. Its journey from a queen’s flight to the auction block is a story in itself.
A ring featuring a 10.38-carat diamond that was entrusted by the last Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, to her hairdresser as she fled Paris and later inherited by her daughter, Marie Thérèse, will be offered at a Christie’s New York auction on June 17. The estimated hammer price is $3 million to $5 million (approximately 437 million to 728 million yen).
This diamond was part of Marie Antoinette’s collection of adornments during her opulent life at the Palace of Versailles, originally set in a hairpin. Following the outbreak of the French Revolution, during the failed Flight to Varennes in 1791 when the royal family attempted to escape Paris, Antoinette entrusted this diamond and other jewels to a trusted hairdresser. After Antoinette’s execution in 1793, her daughter Marie Thérèse, released in 1795, received the diamond during her tumultuous life. It was passed down through generations of the former French royal family until it was auctioned in Geneva in 1996.
Rahul Kadakia, International Head of Jewellery at Christie’s, praised the diamond on the auction’s dedicated website.
The current owner commissioned the modern master jeweler Joel Arthur Rosenthal (JAR), known for producing only a few pieces per year, to set this dramatically historic diamond into a ring. JAR placed the diamond atop a double pavé diamond ring, also using pavé setting on the band. The top of the ring features a radiant fleur-de-lis emblem composed of 17 diamonds.
Kadakia commented on the ring’s design.
The ring’s estimated hammer price is $3 million to $5 million. In 2024, a diamond necklace believed to be linked to the infamous “Affair of the Diamond Necklace” that tarnished Marie Antoinette’s name sold for $4.79 million (approximately 740 million yen at the time), nearly double its estimate. If this auction follows a similar pattern, it could become one of the highest-priced diamond sales of the year.