Marie Antoinette’s Jewels on View at the V&A in London
This season has been rich with royal jewelry exhibitions, and Marie Antoinette Style at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) offers a captivating look at pieces tied to the famous queen and her era. Patricia Treble, a Canadian journalist behind Write Royalty, recently visited the V&A to explore both the Cartier exhibition and the new Marie Antoinette Style display. The show examines how Marie Antoinette shaped her own era’s aesthetic while also highlighting her enduring influence on decorative arts long after her death. Among the items on display are pieces that truly belonged to Marie Antoinette, objects from her contemporaries, and creations inspired by her lasting legacy.
Sarah Grant, the show’s curator, notes that Marie Antoinette’s name conjures both opulence and objects of exquisite beauty. The Austrian-born archduchess, who became Queen of France, left a powerful mark on European taste and fashion in her own lifetime, crafting a distinctive style whose appeal persists globally. She adds that Marie Antoinette’s story has been continually retold and repurposed by successive generations to suit new purposes. The irresistible mix of glamour, spectacle, and tragedy she embodies remains as compelling today as in the eighteenth century.
Patricia has generously shared photographs from her visit, and this piece highlights several jewelry items associated with Marie Antoinette — including the famous necklace linked to her downfall.
The jewel on display at the V&A is not the original Böhmer et Bassange necklace from the infamous Affair of the Necklace. The original piece, commissioned by Louis XIV in 1772, was dismantled and no longer exists. Instead, the exhibition presents a faithful replica created in 1960 by Albert Guerrin and Paulette Laubie, reproducing the design of the real necklace.
Although Marie Antoinette’s name is closely tied to the Affair of the Necklace, she played only a minor role in the scandal. Louis XIV died before the necklace was completed, leaving the jewelers on the hook for the bill. They attempted to sell it to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, but she refused it on two occasions. A scheming courtier then persuaded the jewelers that Marie Antoinette had acted as an intermediary to secretly acquire the necklace.
It was a ruse. Marie Antoinette was completely unaware of the plot, and the courtier disappeared with the jewel. The necklace was smuggled out of France and disassembled. Some segments may have found their way to London buyers, and the scandal fed into a broader narrative about Marie Antoinette’s decadence, shaping public opinion of her long before the monarchy’s downfall.
Family tradition holds that some of the original diamonds eventually reached the Dukes of Sutherland. A necklace now associated with that family features twenty diamonds, some of which are believed to have come from the Böhmer et Bassange piece.
Historically, Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, wore this jewel as a bandeau-style tiara at Queen Victoria’s coronation, when the Duchess served as Mistress of the Robes. The diamonds continued to accompany numerous coronations and celebrations over the years. In 2022, the government accepted the diamonds in lieu of inheritance tax and lent them to the V&A.
Another jewel thought to incorporate diamonds from the Böhmer et Bassange is a diamond négligé with a similar rows-and-tassels motif echoing the original necklace. This piece drapes elegantly around the neck, resembling a refined diamond scarf. For years it belonged to the Marquesses of Anglesey and appeared at several royal coronations.
In 2024, Sotheby’s Geneva sold the Anglesey necklace for about $4.8 million. It was loaned to the V&A for this exhibition by its new owner, who has built a private jewelry collection under the name “The ILLUMINATA Collection.”
While Marie Antoinette did not participate in the Affair of the Necklace, she did own several extraordinary pieces. The V&A exhibition includes two of them: a diamond and pearl drop pendant and a diamond bow brooch, both inherited by Marie Antoinette’s surviving daughter and passed to Bourbon-Parma relatives.
The classic diamond ribbon brooch, crafted in France after the royal marriage, survived the upheaval of the Revolution and was later presented to Madame Royale after her release from prison. After she died in 1851, much of her jewelry went to relatives in the Bourbon-Parma family. The brooch itself was sold at Sotheby’s in 2018 for over $2 million and now resides in a private collection.
Another featured piece, a diamond-and-pearl pendant, was worn by Marie Antoinette herself. It traveled hidden in Belgium during the Revolution, surfaced for Madame Royale in Vienna, and eventually became part of the Bourbon-Parma lineage. Sotheby’s sold the pendant in 2018 for over $36 million to billionaire Heidi Horten, whose museum in Austria now houses the pendant on loan to the V&A.
A heartfelt thank you to Patricia for sharing this intimate glimpse into Marie Antoinette Style. A note to fans of royal fashion: the author has a flight booked to attend next year’s Elizabeth II fashion exhibition in London, though Marie Antoinette will be missed. For those unfamiliar with Patricia’s insightful Substack newsletter, Write Royalty, it’s well worth a read.
The Marie Antoinette Style exhibition runs through March 2026 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, with tickets currently available. For extra behind-the-scenes details on other jewelry pieces in the show, don’t miss the earlier piece on Hidden Gems, which covers additional dazzling gems on display.
