Marie Antoinette’s Pink Diamond Could Fetch $5M at Auction

By Annie Davidson Watson | May 22, 2025

Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale on June 17 presents the rare opportunity to acquire a gem with historic royal provenance that’s been beautifully recrafted for a new era. A 10.38 ct. fancy purple-pink diamond once owned by Marie Antoinette and now set with other diamonds in a JAR ring is estimated to sell for $3 million to $5 million.

The modified kite brilliant-cut pink diamond was one of the French queen’s treasured jewels that, according to royal mythos, she entrusted to a loyal coiffeur when she fled Paris in 1791, in the hope she would one day recover them. While the queen met a tragic fate during the revolution, her jewels survived.

Marie Antoinette’s daughter Duchess Marie Thérèse de Angoulême inherited the diamond, and later passed it on to her niece Duchess Marie Thérèse de Chambord. Further down the lineage, the gem was referred to in the will of Queen Maria Theresa of Bavaria, as “a pink solitaire diamond from Aunt Chambord.”

Now identified by Christie’s as the Marie Thérèse Pink: a Historic JAR Colored Diamond Ring, the contemporary reimagining by JAR—celebrated Parisian jeweler Joel Arthur Rosenthal—sets the stone in a striking ring of blackened platinum, accented with round diamonds.

Marie Antoinette’s pink diamond last appeared on the auction block in Geneva in 1996, offered by a member of a European royal family, and has remained largely unseen for nearly three decades. In the Christie’s sale, the gem is accompanied by a velvet case containing a gold and silver hairpin that bears the Australian imperial warrant. Christie’s says the hairpin likely dates back to 1868, when it was commissioned by Duchess Marie Thérèse de Chambord.

(Photo courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd. 2025)

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