Diadème de la duchesse d'Angoulème| Emerald Tiara Diadem joyaux |impératrice des Français| Empress France

Emerald Tiara Diadem of the Duchess of Angouleme| France Imperial Royal Jewels

This tiara of emeralds and diamonds is a masterpiece of the jewelery of the Bourbon Restoration. It now enriches the collection of jewelery of the Crown dispersed in 1887 and since patiently collected by the department of Objects of art of the Louvre.

Offered by Louis XVIII to his niece the Duchess of Angoulême, the daughter of Louis XVI, it is the work of Christophe-Frédéric Bapst and Jacques-Evrard Bapst, jeweler of the Crown until the Second Empire. Princess Marie Therese, the Duchess of Angouleme (1778-1851), already owned an emerald jewelery set, delivered by the jeweler Paul-Nicolas Menière from 1814. This emerald diamond set included a comb, a necklace, bracelets and earrings.

The diadem, unlike the jewelery set, which was the property of the Duchess of Angouleme, is inscribed in the inventory of the Crown Diamonds.
The jewellers used four large emeralds bought by Louis XVIII and diamonds from the Crown collections. Under the Second Empire, the tiara was worn by Empress Eugenie, who particularly appreciated emeralds.

Then it was offered with the other crown jewels in 1887, as lot Nr 27 for 50 000 frs, when the jeweler Messrs. A. Bachruch bought it for 45 900 frs, on behalf of the wealth Austrian-Hungarian magnate Count Mano Andrassy.

The Countess Andrassy wore the tiara together with her famous emeralds, as seen above in the picture in 1896. The pear-shaped emerald pendant necklace was later seen once on Crown Princess Stephanie of Austria.

The Property of Count Geza Andrassy - a crown jewel of France - a magnificent diadem of grace and charm, in emeralds and diamonds, composed of nine emerald and diamond clusters, graduating in size to a large centre, with continiuing foliate scrolls between each cluster, the whole based on a single line of diamonds, height graduating from w 1/2 inch in the centre. The tiara was sold for £5500, in 1954 by Sotheby's London, to Mr Barwis.

Reappearing in the private collection of Viscount Lambton, Tony Lambton, son of the fifth Earl of Durham had bought it and was worn by his wife Lady Lambton >>, when she was photographed in 1956 by Cecil Beaton.
And later in 1965, when she wore it with a matching diamond necklace which her husband had bought from Wartski, for her >>
The excentric lady mixed it with her "Sham emeralds" ...plastic earpendants as well as with 5 or 6 splendid and costly art deco bracelets.

After a time in the safe of Wartski, the Duchess of Angouleme Tiara was placed on display at the Victoria Albert Museum by its owner in 1982, and remained in the Museum until the year 2002.

Viscount Lambton, the owner of the "Marie-Therese Emerald and Diamond Tiara" decided to dispose of his valuable possession in 2002, and the value of the tiara was placed at £700,000.
However on a recommendation made by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, the Minister of State for the Arts, placed a temporary bar on the export of the tiara, to provide a chance to interested parties to raise the required money, to keep the tiara in the United Kingdom, as the committee was convinced of the outstanding aesthetic importance and the technical skills evident in the tiara, which still retained its original form. The bar was until April 15, 2002, and was to be extended by another 3 months if serious attempts were made to raise such funds.

The bar on the export of the tiara expired on April 15, without any attempt being made to raise funds for the purchase of the tiara.
The owner of the tiara was thus free to do whatever he wanted with his valuable possession. The Victoria and Albert Museum which displayed the tiara for twenty years, thus lost an opportunity to hold on to one of its choicest exhibits for the want of a benefactor to purchase the valuable piece of jewelry for them.
Viscount Lambton successfully negotiated a deal with the Louvre Museum, that brought him the returns he expected. Thus the emerald and diamond tiara of the Duchess d'Angouleme, Marie Therese Charlotte, the only child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to survive the French revolution, finally became the property of the Louvre Museum, where it is displayed today.

An emerald and diamond tiara commissioned for the French Crown Jewels in 1819. A symmetrical design of scrolling foliage mounted with over a thousand diamonds set in silver, and 40 emeralds set in gold. The diamond-set line which runs around the base of the tiara has a bold curve, swinging down from the rear and then strongly up towards the front where the tiara is crested by a large, thin emerald within a frame of 18 diamonds.

A symmetrical design of scrolling foliage mounted with 40 emeralds set in gold and 1031 diamonds set in silver. In the center of the diadem, between two curves set in brilliants, is a large emerald is surrounded by 18 brilliants. This emerald of 15.93 carats is almost square and very thin, is accompanied by fourteen other emeralds of which two are fixed on both sides. The two lateral emeralds make 14.19 cm and 14.3 cm. Bapst completed this set with 26 small emeralds totalling 29 carats.

The scrolling folliage which supports the emeralds rests on a gallery formed by a row of brilliants.

The very classic design of this diadem was made by Jacques-Evrard Bapst (1771-1842) assisted by the designer Steiffert.
The diadem is the work of the Bapst house at the head of which was since 1817 Christophe-Frédéric Bapst (1789-1870) nephew of Jacques-Evrard, who had taken over from his father-in-law Paul-Nicolas Menière, last jeweler of the Ancien Régime.

The Bapsts were from Swabia and settled in Paris since Louis XV. Jacques-Evrard obtained the crown jeweler's certificate in 1821, a title he kept until the Second Empire.

The diadem that the Bapsts made for the Duchess of Angoulême is a masterpiece of the jewelery of the Restoration of the Bourbons, by the wealth of stones, the quality of their mount and the classic inspiration.

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In 1954 the emerald diamond necklace and matching ear pendants, with 10 large pear shaped emeralds was sold for £19 800.

An emerald and diamond diadem was sold by Sotheby's in Zurich for £771 500/$1.62 million in 1979 - probably the pear-shaped emeralds from the necklace were offered:
as an emerald and diamond circlet, the emerald drops with individual eighteenth-century mounts - the outsize 11 emeralds weighing approximately 605 carats. According to family tradition, the emeralds formed part of the French Imperial Crown Jewels from The Times.

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In 1954 the emerald diamond necklace and matching ear pendants, with 10 large pear shaped emeralds was sold for £19 800.

An emerald and diamond diadem was sold by Sotheby's in Zurich for £771 500 / $1.62 million in 1979 - probably the pear shaped emeralds from the necklace are offered:
as an emerald and diamond circlet, the emerald drops with individual eighteenth-century mounts - the outsize 11 emeralds weighing approximately 605 carats. According to family tradition, the emeralds formed part of the French Imperial Crown Jewels) from The Times.

1970 Lord Lambton had succeeded as the 6th Earl of Durham, gave up the peerage to retain his Commons seat. Sources:Twining,Morel,Nitot,Louvre,Österreichische Forstzeitung,das Interessante Blatt, Pester, Epilog zur Goldschmiedeausstellung;www.nationalarchives.gov.uk;Wartski,The Times;

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