Marie Antoinette’s Jewels on Display at the V&A in London

It’s been a remarkable season for royal jewelry exhibitions, and today, we’re taking a closer look at some of the special pieces on display in Marie Antoinette Style at the V&A.

My friend Patricia Treble, the Canadian journalist behind Write Royalty, recently stopped in at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to see both the Cartier exhibition and the museum’s newer offering, Marie Antoinette Style. The new exhibition at the V&A explores both the stylistic choices made by Marie Antoinette during her lifetime and the immense influence that she has had in the world of decorative arts in the centuries since her death. The objects on display include pieces genuinely owned by Marie Antoinette, items that belonged to her contemporaries, and pieces inspired by her legacy.

Sarah Grant, the exhibition’s curator, explains, “Marie Antoinette’s name summons both visions of excess and objects and interiors of great beauty. The Austrian archduchess turned Queen of France had an enormous impact on European taste and fashion in her own time, creating a distinctive style that now has universal appeal and application.” She adds, “Marie Antoinette’s story has been re-told and re-purposed by each successive generation to suit its own ends. The rare combination of glamour, spectacle and tragedy she presents remains as intoxicating today as it was in the 18th century.”

Patricia has kindly shared images from her visit with us, and today I’m highlighting some of the jewelry pieces associated with Marie Antoinette—including, famously, the necklace that helped to cause her downfall.

The jewel shown at the V&A is not the real Böhmer et Bassange necklace from the infamous Affair of the Necklace. That piece, commissioned by Louis XIV in 1772, was dismantled and no longer exists. Instead, the exhibition showcases this replica of the original. Made in 1960 by Albert Guerrin and Paulette Laubie, the necklace replicates the design of the real thing.

Marie Antoinette has gone down in history as a major player in the Affair of the Necklace, but in reality, she was a minor part of the scandal. Louis XIV died before the necklace was completed, leaving the jewelers on the hook for the bill. They tried to sell it to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, but she refused it (twice). Eventually, a scheming courtier got involved, convincing the jewelers that Marie Antoinette had employed her as an intermediary to secretly buy the necklace.

It was all a ruse. Marie Antoinette had no clue what was happening, and the courtier made off with the jewel. The necklace was smuggled out of France and broken up. At least some of the dismantled necklace was sold in London, perhaps to aristocratic buyers. The entire scandal became part of the larger narrative about Marie Antoinette’s decadence, even though she was personally not part of any of the transactions, and the affair had a lasting impact on the public perception of her reputation ahead of the fall of the monarchy.

It’s said, by family tradition, that some of the diamonds from the necklace made their way into the collection of the Dukes of Sutherland. This collect necklace is set with twenty diamonds, at least some of which are said to have come from the original Böhmer et Bassange necklace.

The jewel was worn by Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, as a bandeau-style tiara at the coronation of Queen Victoria, for whom the Duchess served as Mistress of the Robes. The diamonds were worn for more coronations and celebrations over the years, and in 2022 they were accepted by the government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the V&A.

Another jewel allegedly made with diamonds from the Böhmer et Bassange is this diamond négligé, which has a similar rows-and-tassels design shared with the original necklace. The piece is designed to be draped around the wearer’s neck, almost like a very fancy diamond scarf. For many years this necklace was owned by the Marquesses of Anglesey, and it too made several cameo appearances at British royal coronations.

In 2024, the Anglesey necklace was sold at Sotheby’s in Geneva for $4.8 million. It was loaned to the V&A for this exhibition by its new owner, who has amassed an impressive private collection of jewelry under the name “The ILLUMINATA Collection.”

Marie Antoinette may not have been involved in the Affair of the Necklace, but she did own some truly fabulous pieces of jewelry. Two of them are also included in the V&A exhibition: a diamond and pearl drop pendant and a diamond bow brooch, both of which were inherited by Marie Antoinette’s surviving daughter and passed on to her Bourbon-Parma relatives.

The classic diamond ribbon brooch was made in France during the years after Marie Antoinette’s marriage to the future Louis XVI. It was one of the jewels spirited out of the country ahead of the revolution and later presented to their daughter, Madame Royale, after she was released from prison. After her death in 1851, most of her jewels were inherited by her niece, the Duchess of Parma, and her nephew, the Count of Chambord, who were both members of the extended Bourbon-Parma family.

The family owned the jewel for more than a century, and during their ownership tenure a yellow diamond pendant was added to the original bow brooch. They decided to sell the jewel in 2018, and it brought more than $2 million when Sotheby’s sold it at auction. Today, the jewel is part of a private collection.

This gorgeous diamond and pearl pendant was also owned and worn by Marie Antoinette herself. It followed the same path: hidden in Belgium during the revolution, presented to Madame Royale in Vienna, and eventually bequeathed to the Bourbon-Parmas.

The pearl pendant was also sold by Sotheby’s in 2018. The jewelry-collecting billionaire, Heidi Horten, paid more than $36 million for the jewel. She has since passed away, but the pearl remains part of the collection of the museum she founded in Austria. That institution has loaned the pendant to the V&A for this exhibition.

I’m so grateful to Patricia for sharing this personal glimpse into Marie Antoinette Style. (I’ve got my flight booked to see next year’s Elizabeth II fashion exhibition in London, but I’ll miss Marie Antoinette!) If you haven’t checked out her excellent Substack newsletter, Write Royalty, you’re in for a treat.

For those who are luckily available to see the exhibition in person, it runs through March 2026 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and tickets are currently available. To see even more behind-the-scenes info on some of the other pieces of jewelry on show, don’t miss my earlier piece on the jewels at Hidden Gems, too!