Empress Eugenie’s Bow Brooch (Christie’s)

Our journey through the remarkable jewelry collection of our Magpie of the Month, Empress Eugenie of France, arrives today at a truly stunning piece of art: her massive Diamond Bow Brooch. Once worn in France’s royal palaces, the bow took a meandering path, eventually returning to one of France’s most cherished institutions.

Winterhalter’s Portrait of Empress Eugenie, 1861 (Wikimedia Commons)

The brooch was made for Empress Eugenie by a French jeweler, François Kramer, in 1855, two years after she married Emperor Napoleon III. Originally the brooch only consisted of the main diamond bow portion, and it was intended to be worn as a sort of buckle on a belt of diamonds. (As one does.)

The bow brooch as it appeared in the catalogue of the French crown jewel sale, 1887

But Eugenie was very much in the “more is more” camp where jewelry was concerned, and she asked Kramer to transform the bow brooch into a larger stomacher ornament. The resulting devant de corsage featured five pampilles (or fringes), as well as two elaborate diamond tassels.

The jewel was one of many pieces left behind when Napoleon and Eugenie went into exile in 1871, and it was also one of the pieces that the French government decided to sell at auction in 1887. The image above is from the catalogue that accompanied that sale. At the auction, the ornament was purchased for 42,000 francs by a French jeweler, Emile Schlesinger — but not for himself.

Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, ca. 1850s (Wikimedia Commons)

The client for whom Schlesinger acquired the bow brooch was none other than The Mrs. Astor. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor was the doyenne of New York society, gatekeeper of the Gilded Age splendor of the city. She added the bow brooch to her already extensive jewelry collection, and it stayed with the family for a century, becoming known as “Mrs. Astor’s Diamond Stomacher.”

The bow brooch, ca. 2008 (Christie’s)

In April 2008, just before the recession, the brooch popped up on the public market, offered for sale at Christie’s in New York in connection with another jeweler, Ralph O. Esmerian. Aware of the link between the brooch and Empress Eugenie, an organization called the Friends of the Louvre planned to purchase the piece. But a legal battle involving Esmerian ultimately led to the cancellation of the sale.

Nevertheless, the Friends of the Louvre were intent on acquiring the brooch for the museum, which already holds several other pieces of Eugenie’s jewelry, including her grand pearl and diamond tiara. François Curiel, President of Christie’s Europe, helped to coordinate a private sale, and the Friends of the Louvre were successful in purchasing the brooch after all.

Henri Loyrette, then director of the Louvre, noted, “Among the great missions of the Louvre is the development of the museum’s collections, with a particular focus on works of art and precious objects belonging to members of the former French Royal family. The crown jewels are important among the nation’s treasures and we are thrilled to see the brooch of Empress Eugenie returning to France.”

The Dorset Bow Brooch, ca. 2015 (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

But if you’re the kind of person who likes to see jewels worn rather than displayed in museums, you’ve got another option to sort of see the brooch in action. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom often wears a very similar brooch (although without the fringes or tassels): the Dorset Bow Brooch, which was made by Carrington for Queen Mary.  (Our post on the Dorset Bow Brooch is here!)

Hugh Roberts noted the similarities between the Dorset brooch and Eugenie’s Bow Brooch in his 2012 book, The Queen’s Diamonds, and yep — when they’re seen side-by-side, the similarities are far too close to be coincidental. Seems like perhaps Carrington took some very literal inspiration from Eugenie’s brooch when making this royal treasure?

Empress Eugenie painted by Edouard Louis Dubufe, ca. 1854 (Grand Ladies Site)

It’s a new month, which means we’re delving into the collection of a brand-new Magpie of the Month! Because Princess Eugenie of York is getting married in a few days, we’re spending October with one of her royal namesakes: Empress Eugenie of France. And we’re kicking things off with an absolutely grand brooch from her collection: the Currant Leaf Brooch that later belonged to New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

Christie’s

The brooch was made in 1855 by Bapst. In the notes from a 2014 auction of the piece at Christie’s, it is described as being “designed as a cluster of three openwork currant leaves set throughout with old mine diamonds, centering upon a larger cushion-shaped-mine diamond and suspending three detachable articulated pampilles, each composed of graduated old mine diamond collets to the drop-shaped aiguillette terminals, mounted in silver and gold.”

The Feuilles de Groseillier Garland and the Rose Brooches

It’s hard to believe, given the size and design of the brooch, that it was actually once part of a much larger piece of jewelry — but it was. In 1855, Bapst created a demi-parure of diamond jewels for Empress Eugenie which featured currant leaves in the design of each piece. (The name of the suite, “Feuilles de Groseillier,” simply means “currant leaves” in French.) The set included a garland (or necklace), a tour de corsage (a long ornament that stretched across the wearer’s bodice), and a devant de corsage (a large brooch worn on the front of a gown’s bodice, like a stomacher).

The brooch was part of the large garland-style necklace, which is pictured above with a separate trio of rose brooches that were not part of the currant leaf suite. You can see how the garland would eventually be broken down into individual brooches, with fringes suspended from some of the sections. Today’s brooch is one of the sections that has three individual fringes.

Christie’s

Here’s a closer look at the diamond-studded currant leaf design that makes up the top of the brooch…

Christie’s

…and here’s a good close-up of the piece’s fringes, or pampilles.

Empress Eugenie painted by Winterhalter, ca. 1864 (Grand Ladies Site)

Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have any extant images, either paintings or photographs, of Empress Eugenie wearing this grand suite of diamond jewels. It would have been astounding to see all of the pieces worn together, but it wasn’t to be. Eugenie’s husband, Emperor Napoleon III, was overthrown in 1871, and she spent the rest of her life in exile. The currant leaf demi-parure stayed behind in France.

Sixteen years later, the jewels went into a kind of exile of their own. When the French government decided to sell the nation’s crown jewels in May 1887, the suite was among the glittering lots offered at auction. The enormous garland necklace was broken down into eight separate sections, including today’s brooch. It was purchased at the auction by the jewelry firm Tiffany and Co.

Lucrezia Bori, ca. 1921 (Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons)

From Tiffany’s purchase of the brooch in 1887 until the late 1930s, the brooch’s journey gets a bit murky. It resurfaces again in New York in March 1936, during the retirement gala for Lucrezia Bori, a remarkable Spanish lyric soprano who appeared in more than 600 performances with the city’s Metropolitan Opera. She was also a tireless, extremely effective fundraiser for the Met, especially during the Great Depression. At the gala, in recognition of both her talent and her charitable efforts, Helen Huntington Astor presented Bori with the Currant Leaf Brooch on behalf of the Metropolitan Opera Board. Bori kept the brooch for the rest of her life, and when she died in 1960, she bequeathed it back to the Met.

Christie’s

And, until 2014, that’s where it stayed. But facing more financial hardship — and perhaps lacking a fundraiser as effective as Bori — the Metropolitan Opera decided to sell the brooch at auction, selecting Christie’s in Geneva to do the honors. The auction estimate was appropriately high, and when the hammer fell, the brooch had fetched the equivalent of more than $2.3 million USD.