Habsburg Crown Pearls

Today marks the 35th Anniversary of the Death of Empress Zita of Austria, who passed away on this day in 1989! The Bourbon-Parma Princess who became the last Empress of Austria and then a tragic widow for over seven decades in exile, Empress Zita once possessed a spectacular jewellery collection, which included the historic Habsburg Crown Pearls!

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The magnificent Crown of the Empresses of Austria was composed of historic diamonds and heirloom pearls set in gold and silver, as a circlet topped with eight prongs in the shape of lilies and four crown brackets, which are topped with a cross:

The crown is made of gold , silver , diamonds and pearls . Eight prongs in the shape of lilies and four crown brackets rise above the richly decorated crown circlet. The circlet has rows of pearls at the top and bottom, with large and small pearls alternating. The circlet itself is decorated with an ornament made of diamond rosettes and small X-shaped crosses made of five diamonds. On the front there is a particularly large rosette, which is surrounded by other diamonds like a flower. The lily-shaped tines grow from the frost. Each lily bears four large diamonds, three in the leaves and one in the center, all surrounded by smaller diamonds . The base of the lilies on the circlet is also set with small diamonds. There are large pear beads on the tips of the lilies, with those on the four lilies from which the brackets rise being slightly larger than the beads on the lilies without brackets. The four brackets rise like a volute behind the lilies and are slightly dented at the apex; there is a cross at the apex. The temples are decorated with various diamond rosettes. The bars of the cross are made of diamonds and are surrounded by a string of tiny pearls. There are beads at the tips of the beams and in the corners of the crossing point.

The first form of this Crown was worn by Empress Maria Theresa for her Coronation as Queen of Hungary in 1741, later being worn by Empress Maria Ludovika in 1808, and Empress Maria Anna in 1836, before the Crown was reset for Empress Elisabeth using historic stones from Empress Maria Theresa in 1867.

Empress Elisabeth wore the Crown for the magnificent Coronation of Emperor Franz Joseph as King of Hungary in 1867, being described:

“On her head the diamond crown, the shining symbol of majesty, but the expression of humility in her bowed posture and the traces of deep emotion in her noble countenance, she walked or rather floated along as if one of the pictures that decorated the holy rooms would have risen from the frame and come to life. The appearance of the queen here in the holy place created a deep and lasting impression”

Empress Elisabeth was only ever depicted wearing the Crown in engravings, while the Crown was on permanent display in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna for decades.

The Crown was most prominently worn by Empress Zita for the Coronation of Emperor Charles as King of Hungary in December 1916, less than two years before the end of the Habsburg Monarchy following the end of the First World War.

Towards the end of the War and the abolition of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, Court Chamberlain Count Bechthold went to the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, where he retrieved jewellery privately owned by the Imperial Family, among which was this Crown, which were then transported to Switzerland and deposited in the Swiss National Bank in Zurich. The transportation of the jewellery caused a furore and the nationalization of the property of the House of Habsburg, so Emperor Karl and Empress Zita consulted a former financial advisor, Bruno Steiner, who sold some jewels and deposited others as collateral for a loan in an attempt to restore the monarchy in Hungary in October 1921. When that attempt failed, the Emperor was exiled and the advisor retrieved the jewels, and disappeared. It wasn’t until Empress Zita returned to Switzerland the following year that she discovered the disappearance of the Jewels, the fate of much of which remains unknown to this day.

However, Empress Zita’s brother, Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, tracked down Bruno Steiner in a posh hotel in Wiesbaden in 1922, with it being recorded:

Xavier met him there in his apartment and confronted him. Steiner only made excuses and put her brother off until the next day, when he would go with him to the bank and show him the jewels. However, early the next day, Steiner disappeared. He had left hastily that night. The hotel manager opened the apartment to his brother; Of the jewels he only found there “a container with the carcass of the Empress’s crown. The precious stones had been broken out in the most brutal way, pearls were shattered.

Vandalism plus greed”

A few days earlier, it was recorded:

“Messrs Bienenfeld, Steiner and appendix gave a large party and friends’ dinner at the Bernerhof”

A local newspaper reported that Steiner and Joseph Bienenfeld, “were seen drunk in the room with the crown on their heads by a hotel waiter.

However, this shows that Steiner could not have been seen with the crown on his head three years later, in 1925, “during a nighttime feast in a drunken state”

In any case, the beautiful diamond crown of Empress Elisabeth, whose value exceeded three million crowns, was not preserved for posterity due to carelessness, carelessness and dubious financial transactions.

A valuable and historically significant item from the Austrian imperial family is lost forever. He would be a nice addition to the Vienna treasury. At most, fragments of it could still exist somewhere.

Around 1960, two drop-shaped natural pearl measuring approximately 15.6 x 12.1 x 24.9mm and 15.9 x 13.8 x 23.3mm were purchased by Italian Actress Gina Lollobrigida in Rome, being informed that they were formerly in the collections of the House of Habsburg, looking identical to the massive pearls set on the sides of the Empress’ Crown.

Gina Lollobrigida began wearing the Pearl Earrings, usually suspended from a pair of Bulgari Diamond surmounts, for numerous Premieres, Films, Awards Ceremonies, and Galas throughout the 1960s, including the Royal Film Performance of ‘The Taming Of The Shrew’ in 1967.

In later years, Gina Lollobrigida continued to wear her historic Pearl Earrings over the following decades, most notably wearing them when she received the Legion of Honour in 1993, the “Commandeur des Arts et Lettres” Medal in 2004, and the Rome International Film Festival in 2008.

In 2013, Gina Lollobrigida sold off her jewellery collection at Sotheby’s in Geneva, to aid her children’s charities. The historic Pearl Earrings were the highlight of the sale, fetching a record-breaking £1.6 million after a 565,000 – 940,000 CHF estimate. The current location of the Earrings is unknown.

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