Tea at Trianon: A Jewelry Historian

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

Monday, November 29, 2021

A Jewelry Historian

From The New York Times:

Louis Koch was a crown jeweler in Germany in the late 19th century who collected rings. By 1904, he already had 1,700. These had been in four generations of the same family before going on permanent display at the Swiss museum in 2019.

The collection now numbers 2,500, including a gold ring made for Pope Pius IX in the 19th century that has an engraved scene of St. Peter as a fisherman. It’s the type given to the pope before enthronement. After his death it was broken in two, as part of the ceremony.

Another is a diamond-encrusted ring from 1786 with a blue and white Wedgwood plaque of King George III, which looks like a cameo. We know that it was a personal gift from the company founder, Josiah Wedgwood, to the sculptor John Flaxman.

And there’s a royal memorial ring made for the French King Louis XVIII, circa 1820. It’s a gold band with little glass domes containing hair relics from King Louis XVI, King Louis XVII, Queen Marie Antoinette and Madame Elisabeth. (Read more.)