Super Chao

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đź“– Stories behind extraordinary jewels
👑 Royal • Celebrity • Historic Jewelry
đź’Ž Diamantaire | 15+ years in the diamond trade
đź“Ť Antwerp

Currently being exhibited in Shanghai.At first glance, this looks like a very traditional pearl necklace. Then you notic...
06/09/2026

Currently being exhibited in Shanghai.

At first glance, this looks like a very traditional pearl necklace. Then you notice the rubies.

This Bvlgari choker combines multiple rows of cultured pearls with three large floral clusters set with rubies and diamonds. Two smaller flowers sit at the sides, while the largest cluster rests at the centre like a jewelled corsage.

Instead of relying on one enormous centre stone, Bvlgari creates the drama through repetition: rows of pearls, layers of ruby petals and flashes of diamonds between them.



Image source: Personal photograph

Before these bracelets belonged to Marie Antoinette’s daughter, their stones had already been worn by Napoleon’s wife.Th...
05/09/2026

Before these bracelets belonged to Marie Antoinette’s daughter, their stones had already been worn by Napoleon’s wife.

They started life as part of a ruby and diamond parure made by Nitot for Empress Marie-Louise in 1811.

When Napoleon fell and the Bourbon monarchy returned, Louis XVIII had many of the old imperial jewels taken apart and redesigned. In 1816, these rubies and diamonds were used to create a new pair of bracelets for his niece, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, Duchess of Angoulême—the only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

The finished pair contains 72 rubies and 420 old-cut diamonds. Each bracelet is about 18cm long and 3.6cm wide.

I love how simple the layout feels despite the number of stones. The same oval and floral patterns repeat along each bracelet, with three rubies placed in the large centre section.

They were later worn by Queen Marie-Amélie and Empress Eugénie.

When France sold the Crown Jewels in 1887, Tiffany bought the bracelets. After spending decades in private collections, they were finally given to the Louvre in 1973.

One pair of bracelets, worn across four very different chapters of French royal history.



Image source: Personal photograph
Historical photo: wikipedia common

That large red stone isn’t a ruby. It’s a garnet.This is the White Eagle of Poland Clasp, made in Paris around 1640–1660...
04/09/2026

That large red stone isn’t a ruby. It’s a garnet.

This is the White Eagle of Poland Clasp, made in Paris around 1640–1660 by an unidentified goldsmith. It entered Louis XIV’s collection around 1669.

The heart-shaped stone forms the eagle’s chest. The Louvre identifies it as hessonite garnet and lists 149 rubies among the jewel’s materials.

Look closely at the white feathers, too. They’re enamel, with black markings painted into the design, rather than rows of diamonds.

The eagle wears a crown and holds a gold sceptre in one claw and a blue orb topped with a cross in the other. That blue is translucent enamel, not a sapphire. A single pearl hangs beneath the tail.

The design represents Poland’s white eagle, although the jewel was made in France and eventually belonged to the Sun King.

It also has a theft story of its own.

On July 29, 1830, it was stolen from the Louvre. Two years later, it returned to the museum.



Image source: © 2016 GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre)

This crown once held two of the most famous diamonds in the world.This is the personal crown of Louis XV, made for his c...
03/09/2026

This crown once held two of the most famous diamonds in the world.

This is the personal crown of Louis XV, made for his coronation in 1722, when he was only 12 years old.

It was originally set with 282 diamonds, 64 coloured gemstones and 230 pearls. The enormous Regent Diamond was placed in the fleur-de-lis at the front, while the Sancy Diamond sat at the very top. Eight historic Mazarin Diamonds were also used in the design.

But here’s the surprising part: the stones we see today are not the originals.

After the coronation, the valuable gems were removed and returned to the French Crown collection. They were replaced with rock crystal, coloured glass and imitation pearls.

The crown itself is made from partially gilded silver and measures about 24cm high. It was designed by Claude Rondé and made by Augustin Duflos in the Louvre workshop of Laurent Rondé.

Almost every other French royal crown from before the Revolution was later destroyed. This one survived and entered the Louvre in 1852.

The famous diamonds are gone, but their original settings are still there.



Image source: Personal image
Historical photo: Wikipedia public domain

This is Empress Eugénie’s Reliquary Brooch, a jewel that brings together the history of three generations of the French ...
02/09/2026

This is Empress Eugénie’s Reliquary Brooch, a jewel that brings together the history of three generations of the French royal family.

Created in 1855 by Paul-Alfred Bapst, it measures approximately 17.5cm long and 4.6cm wide. Its gilded silver setting holds 94 diamonds. But the history of those stones is far more important than their number.

The two large diamonds facing each other at the centre, almost like the wings of a butterfly, are the 17th and 18th Mazarin Diamonds. They formed part of the 18 diamonds bequeathed to Louis XIV by Cardinal Mazarin in 1661 and were later used by the Sun King as buttons on his formal clothing.

Another important diamond in the brooch had previously served as the fourth button on one of Louis XIV’s doublets. It was later transformed into an earring for Marie Antoinette before being reused once again for Empress Eugénie.

Bapst arranged these historic stones into a long, articulated design. A flower-shaped cluster of eight diamonds sits at the top. The two Mazarin Diamonds form a bow-like centre, followed by several layers of pear-shaped, oval and elongated stones. Multiple diamond drops are suspended from small joints, allowing them to move and catch the light when worn.

When most of the French Crown Jewels were sold in 1887, this brooch was one of the rare pieces retained for the national collection and assigned to the Louvre.

On October 19, 2025, it was stolen from the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon. The museum still lists it as stolen.

This is not Empress Eugénie’s Grand Diamond Bow. They are two separate jewels, but both disappeared during the same robbery.



Image source:
Jewelry © Personal image
Historical photo: Wikipedia common

Napoleon gave this emerald necklace to Marie Louise as a wedding present in 1810.It was part of a complete emerald and d...
01/09/2026

Napoleon gave this emerald necklace to Marie Louise as a wedding present in 1810.

It was part of a complete emerald and diamond parure made in Paris by François-Regnault Nitot. The set included a diadem, necklace, earrings and a comb.

The necklace measures 43cm across and 7cm high. Ten large emeralds, alternating between oval and diamond shaped forms, are surrounded by diamonds and connected by palmettes set with smaller round emeralds. From each large stone hangs a pear shaped emerald with its own diamond border.

The central emerald has an unusual eight sided outline, with the largest drop hanging below it. The setting is gold, but from the front you barely see it. Almost everything is covered with brilliant and rose cut diamonds.

When Marie Louise left Paris in 1814, she was allowed to keep the set because it was her personal property. It remained with her Habsburg descendants until 1953, when it was sold to Van Cleef & Arpels.

The emeralds from the diadem were later removed and sold, but this necklace and its matching earrings survived in their original form. The Louvre acquired them in 2004.

On October 19, 2025, the necklace was stolen from the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon. As of September 2026, it has not been publicly recovered.



Image source: Public domain

31/08/2026

A client asked me to find a 2ct oval diamond.

Sounds simple, but with ovals, carat weight is only the starting point. The length-to-width ratio, outline, bow-tie, brightness and overall spread can make two 2ct stones look completely different.

Nice shape, brilliance and fire, and most importantly, it looks lively in person. Sometimes the best stone isn’t the one with the “best” numbers on paper — it’s the one that looks right the moment you see it.

This sapphire weighs almost 100ct, but Cartier once set it sideways.Known as the Bismarck Sapphire Necklace, it centres ...
31/08/2026

This sapphire weighs almost 100ct, but Cartier once set it sideways.

Known as the Bismarck Sapphire Necklace, it centres on a 98.57ct blue sapphire from Burma, now Myanmar. Mona Williams bought the stone in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, during her honeymoon with American businessman Harrison Williams in 1926.

Cartier created the first necklace in 1927, placing the sapphire horizontally. Mona later became Countess von Bismarck, and in 1959 she asked Cartier to redesign the piece. The sapphire was turned vertically, creating the version seen here.

The necklace is made in platinum and set with 312 baguette and round brilliant cut diamonds. Eight smaller square cut sapphires are worked into the design, although they’re easy to miss beside the enormous centre stone.

What I like about this necklace is how restrained it feels for such a large jewel. There’s no complicated floral decoration around the sapphire. The diamond links simply narrow towards the back, keeping all the attention on that deep blue centre stone.

Mona donated the necklace to the Smithsonian in 1967. Today, it’s part of the National Gem Collection at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.



Image source: Public domain

Every sapphire in this royal parure is natural and unheated. More than 200 years later, we are still seeing their origin...
30/08/2026

Every sapphire in this royal parure is natural and unheated. More than 200 years later, we are still seeing their original colour.

This is the Sapphire Parure of Queen Marie Amélie and Queen Hortense, made in Paris sometime between 1800 and 1835. The jeweller and original commissioner are both unknown.

The complete set once included a tiara, necklace, earrings, three brooches, a comb and two bracelets. All the sapphires came from Ceylon and are surrounded by diamonds set in gold.

The 40cm necklace is fully articulated, allowing it to sit naturally around the neck. Parts of the tiara could also be removed and worn as brooches.

The earliest confirmed record shows Louis Philippe, then Duke of Orléans, buying the parure from Hortense de Beauharnais. She was Napoleon’s stepdaughter and the former Queen of Holland. It was later worn by his wife, Queen Marie Amélie, and remained in the Orléans family for generations.

Family stories linked the parure to Empress Joséphine and even Marie Antoinette, but neither claim has ever been proven.

The Louvre acquired the surviving pieces in 1985. On October 19, 2025, the tiara, necklace and one earring were stolen. They have not been publicly recovered.



Image source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

29/08/2026

Imagine trying to match 212 natural pearls before cultured pearls even existed.

This pearl and diamond tiara was made for Empress Eugénie in 1853 by French Crown jeweller Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier. It contains 212 pearls, including 17 pear-shaped examples, along with 1,998 diamonds.

The design places the larger pearls above diamond leaves, almost like fruit growing from silver branches. The finished tiara measures 19cm across and 7cm high.

After the French Crown Jewels were sold in 1887, it entered the Thurn and Taxis collection. The Friends of the Louvre bought it back in 1992 and returned it to France.

On October 19, 2025, the tiara was stolen from the Louvre. As of August 2026, it has not been publicly recovered.

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