A mysterious 18th-century necklace made of about 500 diamonds, some of which are believed to have been taken from a piece that contributed to Marie Antoinette's death, will be sold in November, Sotheby's said.
The piece from a private Asian collection will be sold on November 11 in Geneva, and online bidding will begin on the auction house's website on October 25.
The necklace, which consists of three rows of diamonds ending in a diamond tassel at each end, will appear in public for the first time in 50 years and is expected to fetch between $1.8 million and $2.8 million.
"It's a wonderful find because usually jewels in the 18th century were broken to be used again... so to have an intact piece of jewellery from the Georgian period of this importance, with this amount of carats... is absolutely fabulous," Andres White Correal, chairman of Sotheby's jewellery department, told AFP.
"The jewel has been passed down from family to family. We can start at the beginning of the 20th century when it was part of the collection of the Marquesses of Anglesey," he added.
Members of this aristocratic family are believed to have worn the jewel twice in public: once at the coronation of King George VI in 1937 and once at the coronation of his daughter Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
Furthermore, little is known about the necklace, including who designed it and for whom it was commissioned, although the auction house believes that such an impressive antique jewel could only have been created for a royal family.
'It was probably made in the decade before the French Revolution,' it adds.
It is believed that some of the diamonds may have originated from the famous necklace linked to the scandal-turned "Affair of the Necklace", which contributed to the onset of the French Revolution and ultimately Marie Antoinette's death, Sotheby's said.
The auction house said the diamonds were likely mined "from the legendary Golconda mines in India."
The Golconda diamonds are still considered the clearest and most dazzling ever mined.
The necklace will be on public display in London until Wednesday, before beginning a tour that will take it to Hong Kong, New York and Taiwan. | BGNES
