A Royal Bracelet Rediscovered

Following detailed research and negotiation with the Victoria and Albert Museum, an important sapphire and diamond bracelet, purchased by us in 2019 and formerly in the collection of Queen Victoria, has been secured on loan for display in the William and Judith Bollinger Gallery.

Here it has been reunited with the exquisite sapphire and diamond coronet designed by Prince Albert in the year of his wedding to the young Queen, which was saved from export and generously donated to the V&A in 2017. The tiara once formed part of a suite of royal jewels including a necklace (the whereabouts of which remain unknown following its sale by auction in the 1970s) and this matching bracelet, which, barring a brief exhibition at the Dorchester Hotel in 1953 as one of a collection of jewels loaned by Mary, the Princess Royal, has never before been on public display. Following on from the successful negotiation last year of the sale to the Louvre of a ruby and diamond brooch, once the property of Marie Antoinette’s daughter and made up from a suite of jewels made by Napoleon for his second wife, we are are delighted to have been involved in placing such a significant piece into this country’s foremost jewellery collection for the benefit of the public.

We have been established as independent dealers for twenty-one years and, in that time, have placed number of highly important pieces into national collections, including three into the highly select display of French Crown Jewels in the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon. However, this is our first piece to appear in one of our own national museums and we are thrilled to be marking the start of our third decade in business with the reappearance of this bracelet in the V&A which, given it was one of Queen Victoria's own treasured possessions, seems its ideal home.