KennethR New York

12/08/2025

10/27/2025

Shame on Van Cleef and Arpels for ruining a historical artifact. Let’s pray they don’t get their hands on the stolen French Crown Jewels!!!

Marie Louise Diadem, a historic piece of jewelry given by Napoleon Bonaparte to his second wife, Marie Louise of Austria, as a wedding present in 1810. The paintings below the diadem are portraits of Marie Louise herself.
The diadem was originally created with 79 Colombian emeralds and over 1,000 diamonds, set in silver and gold. After Marie Louise's death, the diadem was passed down through her Habsburg relatives. In 1953, the jewelry firm Van Cleef & Arpels purchased the piece from a descendant.
Van Cleef & Arpels replaced the emeralds with 79 Persian turquoise cabochons and sold the original emeralds individually. The diadem, with its new turquoise stones, was later donated to the Smithsonian Institution by Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1971. Today, the Marie Louise Diadem is on permanent display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C..