After her death in 1847, the former Empress Marie-Louise bequeathed the parure with the tiara, the emerald necklace, the emerald earrings and the emerald brooch to her Habsburg relatives.
In the end, the VanCleef & Arpels acquired only the tiara. (The other pieces were bought by a private collector).
In 1954, the emeralds from the VanCleef & Arpels's tiara were distributed among modern pieces.
Van Cleef & Arpels worked the emeralds into a diamond necklace in platinum for Eugenia Niarchos, with the largest pear shape emeralds the focal point.
The centre stone of the tiara, weighing 12.04 cts, was reworked into a ring in platinum, see above.
For Eugenie Niarchos, two of the quatrefoil emeralds 12,15ct and 12,04ct were made into earrings - with a top of oval emeralds to hang in and out.
Furthermore, the large bracelet with five oval emeralds from the tiara, received a diamond frame in platinum and can be seen in the picture above.
The Life Magazin noted: New Platinum setttings for Tiara's gems combine largest historic emeralds with modern full-cut diamonds, to give greater brilliance, are beeing kept in the orginal shell. The major emeralds have been reset, these pieces cost $ 1 Million, in 1955. ( 1 000 000 USD vom January 1955 = 9 757 274.72 USD January 2021 )
Niarchos was married five times and had five children.
Eugenia Livanos 1927-1970 was his third wife. She was a daughter of the Greek shipowner Stavros Livanos. With her he had three sons Philippos, Spyros and Konstantin(who died of a cocaine overdose in 1999) and his daughter Maria.
However, he divorced Livanos and subsequently married Charlotte Ford, the daughter of Henry Ford II. With her he had a daughter, Elena Ford. However, this relationship did not last either, so he returned to Eugenia Livanos, who committed suicide in 1970.
In 1971, Niarchos married Athena Spencer-Churchill (1926-1974), born Athina Livanos, who was the sister of his third wife and the ex-wife of both Aristotle Onassis and John Spencer-Churchill, 11th Duke of Marlborough. She also committed suicide.
The emeralds may be part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. The collection, which now belongs to the Niarchos family, is ranked among the 10 most important private collections in the world. He donated part of his collection to the Louvre.
In the 1970s, he suffered heavy losses due to the oil crisis and the slump in the tanker market, which forced him to sell various ships and docks. In the 1990s, he largely withdrew from business life and lived mostly in St. Moritz, Switzerland. There he invested a large part of his fortune in traditional businesses such as hotels and cable cars, also with the purpose of saving them from being sold to large chains.
Niarchos died in Zurich at the age of 86. Since 1996, a large part of his fortune has been managed by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which supports social and cultural projects worldwide, especially in the areas of education and health. One focus of the Foundation's activities is the promotion of programmes in Switzerland and Greece.
Stavros Niarchos was a royalist and supported the royal family of Greece even after the end of the monarchy. Among his employees was Alexander Prince of Yugoslavia.
Source: Archive Ursula Butschal;Life Magazin;Archive VCA;Wikipedia;
