Today marks the 175th Anniversary of the Death of Princess Marie Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême, who passed away on this day in 1851! The only child of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette to survive the French Revolution married her cousin and later became the last Queen of France for 20 mins, so we are featuring her magnificent Diamond Tiara!
While the exact origin of this magnificent Diamond Tiara is not exactly known, it was either created by Bapst or Nitot around the time of the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, using Diamonds from the French Crown Jewels, possibly created by resetting earlier jewels created for Empress Josephine of Empress Marie Louise.
In 1816, Madame Royale, the Duchess of Angoulême was portrayed wearing a sumptuous diamond parure comprising the large Diamond Tiara, two rivière necklaces, a pair of chandelier earrings, a belt buckle, a ring, and her mother’s pair of Diamond Bracelets by painter Antoine-Jean Gros
The Diamond Tiara was also worn by the Duchess of Angoulême for another portrait by Antoine-Jean Gros in 1817 and by Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin in 1818, among various prints and drawings from that period, accounting for artistic license.
The Duchess of Angoulême asked her uncle, King Louis XVIII, to allow the Tiara to become her personal property, so the Tiara was reset with diamonds from the Royal Family’s collection, and the older diamonds were returned to the Crown Jewels around 1820.
A few years later, the Duchess of Angoulême was portrayed wearing her Diamond Tiara for a portrait by Robert Lefèvre created around 1824, and as private property, it remained with her when the Royal Family went into exile in 1830.
After the Duchess of Angoulême’s death in 1851, the Diamond Tiara and her other jewels were inherited by her nephew and nieces: the Count and Countess of Chambord and the Duchess of Parma, who decided do dismantle the Tiara to create several new jewels.
Some of the Diamonds from the Duchess of Angoulême’s Diamond were used to create a spectacular Diamond Tiara that remained an heirloom of the Bourbon-Parma Family until the 1990s.
Most notably, the nine Diamond Rivières were created from the Duchess of Angoulême’s Diamond Tiara which were inherited by various branches of the Bourbon Parma Family, though one of the Diamond Rivières from the Württemberg Royal Fmaily was auctioned off at Sotheby’s in 2024. The location of that, and the other pieces, is not known!
More famously, the magnificent Emerald Tiara of the Duchess of Angoulême, which we are saving for a bigger anniversary, was created by Bapst around 1820 and after being auctioned in 1887, it belonged to the Counts Andrassy and the Earls of Durham before being acquired by the Louvre in 2002, where it fortunately escaped the theft exactly a year ago.
Duchess of Angoulême’s Emerald Tiara
Diamond Tiara
Queen Marie Antoinette’s Diamond Bracelets
Empress Eugénie’s Pearl Tiara
Empress Eugenie’s Emeralds
Diamond Bow Brooch
Andean Emerald Cross
French Crown Pearl Brooch
Empress Eugénie’s Crown
