Tea at Trianon: The Dubai Exhibition of the Bourbon Parma Collection

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, October 14, 2018

The Dubai Exhibition of the Bourbon Parma Collection

An exhibit which includes a few select pieces that once belonged to Queen Marie-Antoinette. From Reuters:

Held in private collections for more than 200 years, jewelry that once belonged to France’s ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette has gone on display in Dubai ahead of its planned auction in Geneva next month. Described by British auction house Sotheby’s as “one of the most important royal jewelry collections ever to come to auction,” the seven pieces are part of an exhibition entitled “Royal Jewels from the Bourbon Parma family” that also includes other items from the storied dynasty’s rich history. The French queen’s jewels on view include a 49-karat natural pearl and diamond pendant, as well as necklaces, brooches, and earrings valued in total at between $1.5 and 3 million. The collection, which belongs to the Bourbon Parma family, also includes a monogram ring with woven strands of Marie Antoinette’s hair enclosed. Edward Gibbs, Sotheby’s chairman for the Middle East and India, said the Middle East had become a highly lucrative market, with a 62 percent increase in buyers over the past five years, particularly younger customers.

“It is a two-way street. We are here both to sell art and also to source it,” said Gibbs. “It’s both a regional hub and an international center.” After Dubai, the jewelry will also be exhibited in several other cities including London, New York and Hong Kong before going under the hammer in Geneva in November. The tour is expected to arouse the interest of potential wealthy buyers in the Gulf and elsewhere ahead of the auction. Marie-Antoinette, an Austrian archduchess by birth, was the wife of King Louis XVI of France, of the Bourbon dynasty. Both were executed by guillotine in 1793 after the French Revolution. The queen’s jewelry was wrapped up and smuggled out of France to Vienna for safe-keeping during the Revolution and remained in the Bourbon Parma family. (Read more.)

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