Editor’s Note
A rare pink diamond with a storied past linked to French royalty is set for auction. This article details the upcoming sale of the “Marie-Thérèse Pink Diamond,” believed to have once belonged to Queen Marie-Antoinette, and the significant interest it is expected to generate.
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A rare pink diamond, nicknamed the “Marie-Thérèse Pink Diamond,” will be sold by Christie’s in New York on June 17, 2025. While the over-10-carat precious stone bears the first name of the Duchess of Angoulême, it is believed to have belonged to her mother, Queen Marie-Antoinette. This is sure to spark considerable desire among collectors.
Of considerable size and weight – 10.38 carats – the “Marie-Thérèse Pink Diamond” is said to originate from the Golconda mines in India, whose sole deposit yielding fine stones was closed last year. This is a first argument for its exceptional value. However, it is not just its extraction that makes this violet-hued pink diamond, to be sold on June 17 by Christie’s New York branch, an exceptional object. Very often, it is a stone’s provenance and history that create its rarity, and thus its price.
This diamond was indeed the property of Marie-Thérèse of France, eldest daughter of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette. A series of documents allows for precise tracing of its chain of ownership. Having no descendants, the Duchess of Angoulême bequeathed it to her niece, the Duchess of Chambord, before it returned to the coffers of Queen Marie-Thérèse of Bavaria a few years later.
she wrote in her will, and thus it was passed down through generations until its sale in Geneva in November 1996. One question remains, however: did the precious gem originally belong to Marie-Antoinette’s private collection?
Some affirm this, as indicated on Christie’s website. The story goes that on the eve of her attempted escape in June 1791, to flee Paris and the Revolution, the queen entrusted her jewels to her hairdresser, hoping to retrieve them one day. But the royal family’s flight was a failure. Louis XVI was ultimately guillotined on June 21, 1793, while his wife followed him to the scaffold a few months later, on October 16. However, many of the jewels were returned to Marie-Thérèse, the sovereigns’ only surviving child, upon her release from the Temple prison and her dispatch to Austria in late 1795. Among them, it seems, was this famous gem.
The fancy kite-shaped diamond is now set on a ring crowned with a fleur-de-lis, bearing the hallmark of the famous Parisian jeweler Joel Arthur Rosenthal, also known as JAR. Its price has been estimated between $3 and $5 million. But one can wager that its royal provenance could well turn a few heads. In 2021, Christie’s sold a pair of Marie-Antoinette’s diamond bracelets for $8.2 million, three times their estimate. Three years earlier, a pendant adorned with a pearl worn by the queen reached the staggering sum of $44 million! This suggests the potential for a handsome sale.
The reason for this overflowing enthusiasm? The desire, undoubtedly, to own a small piece of History, especially when it concerns a personality as popular in the collective imagination as Marie-Antoinette.
Jean Ghika, Global Head of Jewelry at Bonhams, told our colleagues at Tatler. A story to follow, then.