31/10/2025
Episode 567: Marie Antoinette Style, an interview with Dr. Sarah Grant
Of the 250 objects the Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition, Marie Antoinette Style, some fifty of them were owned by the queen herself. This includes some of her personal jewelry collection which means diamonds, diamonds, diamonds. The second to last slide seen here is a reproduction of the infamous necklace that was the catalyst for a sensational scandal known as ‘The Affair of the Necklace’ in 1785.
Originally commissioned by Louis XV for his mistress Madame du Barry, the 540 stone necklace was uncompleted at the time of the King’s unexpected death in 1774. It then remained in the possession of its creators, the jewelers Bassange et Böhmer, who were desperate to recoup the enormous expense that went into its ex*****on. When offered to the new French queen, Marie Antoinette declined to purchase the now-completed necklace due to its extravagance, but not long after a cadre of con artists hatched a plan that involved a Cardinal, his mistress and a Marie Antoinette impersonator in order to trick the jewelers into thinking the queen was indeed moving forward with the purchase, albeit clandestinely. The necklace then disappeared after being handed over to the faux Marie Antoinette who had arranged the transfer under the cover of darkness. While some of the individual stones were later recovered shortly thereafter, it more or less disappeared to history until recently. A portion of one of the necklace’s tassels is believed to have been reworked into a 300 carat choker-style piece that re-emerged on the market in 2024, selling for $4.8 million at auction.
IMAGES 1-4: Installation views, Courtesy of the V&A, London
IMAGE 5: Print detailing Bassange et Böhmer’s design, circa 1785, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
