The French Sapphire Parure most often referenced in jewellery history is the suite of sapphire and diamond ornaments associated with the Empress Marie-Louise, second wife of Napoleon I. The parure has a documented imperial provenance, was acquired by the French state in 2002 after a long period in private hands, and is on permanent display in the Galerie d'Apollon at the Musee du Louvre.

Original commission

Marie-Louise of Austria married Napoleon Bonaparte in 1810, following his divorce from Josephine. The marriage was a political alliance designed to link the French Empire to the older European royal houses, and the bridal parures were correspondingly elaborate. The crown jeweller Etienne Nitot et Fils, predecessor of the modern firm Chaumet, supplied multiple parures for the new empress. The sapphire and diamond parure now in the Louvre is the most fully preserved of these.

The parure as originally constituted included a necklace, a pair of earrings, a comb, a tiara, a pair of bracelets, and a belt fitting, all set with Ceylon (Sri Lankan) sapphires of medium to deep blue colour and old mine cut diamonds. The principal stones include a 49-carat cushion-cut sapphire that serves as the centrepiece of the necklace and several oval and cushion-cut sapphires of approximately 20 to 35 carats. The total weight of sapphires in the original parure exceeded 900 carats. The setting style is characteristic of First Empire neoclassicism, with palmette and Greek-key motifs in fine millegrained mounts.

Provenance after the empire

After the fall of the empire in 1815, Marie-Louise retained the parure as part of her personal property and took it to the Duchy of Parma, where she ruled as duchess until her death in 1847. The parure passed to her son by her second marriage, the future Albert von Montenuovo, and remained with the Montenuovo family in central Europe through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The pieces were sold by the family at auction in the 1930s and dispersed.

Significant pieces of the parure passed through the trade across several decades. The necklace and earrings were acquired by the New York jeweller and collector Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1950s and donated by her, along with the rest of her jewellery collection, to the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian sapphire necklace and earrings remain on display in the National Gem Collection in Washington.

A second portion of the parure, including the tiara and the comb, remained in private European hands and was eventually offered to the French state in 2002. The Louvre acquired this portion at a price reported in the press as approximately three million euros, with the funds raised partly by public subscription. The acquisition was characterised at the time as the recovery of an item of national heritage.

Gemological character

The sapphires in the Marie-Louise parure are characteristic of fine Ceylon material of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: medium to medium-deep blue with a slight violet undertone, well-saturated but not overdark, with the soft glow that the trade associates with the velvet quality of unheated Ceylon corundum. Gemological examination has confirmed that the principal stones are of Ceylon origin, and there is no indication that they have been heat-treated, although the sapphires were not subjected to the modern testing protocols when the surviving pieces were last formally examined.

The cutting of the principal stones is mid-Georgian: cushion and oval shapes with shallow pavilions, polished girdles, and the characteristic windowing common in old cuts. The cutting style preserves carat weight at the expense of optical performance compared to modern cuts, and the stones display the soft, slightly diffuse character of light return that connoisseurs associate with old cuts.

The diamonds in the mounts are old mine and old single cuts, with the small triangular and lozenge-shaped pavilion facets characteristic of pre-1900 cutting. The gold mounts are substantial, with millegrained edges and the precise hand-finishing that characterises Nitot work.

Significance

The Marie-Louise parure is significant in jewellery history for three reasons. First, it is the most fully preserved imperial parure from the First Empire, with a continuous documented provenance. Most other empire pieces were either broken up during the political upheavals of the nineteenth century or substantially reset by later owners. Second, the suite illustrates the workshop standards of Nitot, the firm that became Chaumet, at the highest level of imperial commission. Third, the principal sapphires are reference examples of fine unheated Ceylon material at a date that predates any of the modern treatment methods, and serve as benchmarks for the visual character of natural Ceylon sapphire.

For the contemporary trade, the Marie-Louise parure is a study reference rather than a market specimen. The pieces are not for sale and are not expected to come on the market. Their value to the trade is in establishing the appearance of historical Ceylon material and the workmanship of First Empire mounts. Reproductions and pieces in the Marie-Louise style continue to be produced and to attract premium pricing for the historical resonance.