The Florentine Diamond Dazzles at a Canadian Museum Exhibition

When revelations about the location of the long-lost Florentine Diamond were made public last year, the grandsons of the last Empress of Austria expressed hopes that the incredible stone would soon be shared in an exhibition. Now, those hopes have come true, thanks to a landmark display in Quebec.

Hidden Treasure: A Century of Mystery officially opened at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Quebec City last Friday. The new exhibition showcases prestigious jewels associated with the Habsburg family, which are being displayed for the first time in public.

A press release from the museum notes, “While the brilliance, elegance, and historical significance of these jewels make them worthy of display in their own right, they are being featured at the Musée because they are part of a story with close ties to Québec: that of Zita of Bourbon-Parma, the last Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, who found refuge in the city of Québec in October 1940.”

The story of Zita’s association with the Habsburg jewels began in 1911, when she married Archduke Carl, the great-nephew of Emperor Franz Josef. Carl was expected at the time to one day inherit the Austro-Hungarian thrones, as his cousin, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, married morganatically, which meant that his children did not have succession rights.

The expectation became reality sooner than expected. Franz Ferdinand was murdered in Sarajevo in 1913, and three years later, when Emperor Franz Josef died, Carl and Zita became Emperor and Empress of Austria and King and Queen of Hungary. They’re pictured above with their eldest son, Crown Prince Otto, during their Hungarian coronation in Budapest in December 1916.

Carl’s tenure as Emperor was a short one. The end of World War I in 1918 also meant the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire and its monarchy. Following two failed attempts to regain the Hungarian throne, Carl and Zita went into exile with their children on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Carl died there of pneumonia in 1922 when he was just 34, leaving Zita a widow with eight children.

The family soon moved again, first to Spain and then to Belgium. When the Nazis invaded in 1940, Zita decided that it would be safer across the Atlantic. She settled in Quebec, living in a modest home, the Villa Saint-Joseph, provided to the family by an order of nuns in Sillery. Zita ended up staying for more than a decade, only returning to Europe in the early 1950s.

The modest life that Zita lived following the end of the monarchy and her husband’s death led many to assume that the crown jewels, several of which went missing in the aftermath of the war, had vanished. But in November, the New York Times broke the astonishing story that some of the greatest Habsburg treasures had been smuggled out of Europe by Zita in a small suitcase. The jewels, including the iconic Florentine Diamond, had been in a bank box in Quebec since World War II.

Zita had kept the location of the jewels almost entirely secret. She told just two people: her second son, Archduke Robert, and her youngest son, Archduke Rudolf. (The eldest, Crown Prince Otto, was by then head of the Habsburg family, but he was not told about the jewels or their location.) As a security precaution, she made Robert and Rudolf promise that the location of the jewels would remain a secret until a century after Emperor Carl’s death.

That century mark passed in 2022. By then, Zita was long dead, and Robert and Rudolf had passed as well. They had each shared the secret with just one person. Robert told his only son, Prince Lorenz, who is married to the sister of the King of the Belgians. Rudolf informed his second son, Archduke Simeon, who is a partner and managing director of Principal Asset Management AG in Liechtenstein.

In 2025, just before they shared the news about the Florentine Diamond and its bejeweled companions with the world, Lorenz and Simeon revealed the family secret to their cousin, Crown Prince Otto’s son, Archduke Karl. The three invited a New York Times journalist, Robin Pogrebin, to accompany them to Quebec to view the jewels. Also with them was Christoph Köchert, a representative of the former Habsburg crown jewelers, who helped to authenticate the jewels. The Florentine Diamond, long thought to have disappeared, turned out to have been safely tucked away in Canada for almost a century, still nestled in its eighteenth-century hat pin setting.

Both the diamond and the hat pin are now included in the public exhibition in Quebec City. The Florentine, which takes its name from its seventeenth-century tenure with the Medici family in Tuscany, weighs in at an astonishing 137.27 carats. Its pale yellow color makes it instantly recognizable.

Also shown in the exhibition are fourteen more pieces of Habsburg jewelry. The museum has shared excellent photographs of several highlighted pieces, including this piece of eighteenth-century Order of the Golden Fleece insignia. The pink stones in the badge are thought to be tourmalines. The badge was used by Emperor Carl, and the notes from the museum indicate that he wore it for the last time posthumously during his wake.

This hat ornament, which also dates to the eighteenth century, is set with diamonds and honey-colored yellow sapphires. The jewel is meant to reflect the colors of the Habsburg monarchy.

This unusual watch incorporates elements that date to the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The emeralds used in the piece are incredible.

And here’s another watch from the exhibition. The pocket watch was made in France before 1770 by one of the finest watchmakers of the time, Jean-Antoine Lépine. Its materials include silver, diamonds, pink stones thought to be sapphires, glass, enamel, enamel powder, and hair (!). If the date piques your interests, it’s for good reason: the piece was part of the trousseau of Marie Antoinette, and the lock of hair is thought to have belonged to her mother, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. The watch returned to Austria with Marie Antoinette’s daughter, Madame Royale, after the revolution.

The pieces shown in the exhibition are all now held by the Saint-Joseph Trust, which is named after Zita’s home in Quebec. “The city of Québec offered my family safety, respect, and hope during a time of great uncertainty,” explained Empress Zita’s grandson Karl von Habsburg. “Showing these jewels at the Musée is an expression of profound gratitude to Québec and Canada for welcoming and sheltering my grandmother and her eight children during World War II.”

The exhibition is noted to be a temporary one, but I don’t believe there is currently a closing date posted. Those interested in seeing the historic jewels in person can visit the museum in Battlefields Park during its opening hours (Tuesday-Sunday, 10 AM-5 PM). Admission to the exhibition is included in the price of a PLUS ticket.

Before I go today, a preview of what’s coming up this weekend. At Hidden Gems, my year-long series on important days in the life of Queen Elizabeth II arrives on Saturday in 1981—but perhaps not on the day you’d imagine. And on Sunday, my usual weekly newsletter will be out with a full digest of the entire week’s content. See you there!