A diamond necklace of Russian empress Catherine II was sold by Sotheby's at an auction in Geneva yesterday.
An anonymous collector paid 2.036 million Swiss Francs ($1.535 million) for the jewelry masterpiece – the necklace with 27 big silver-mounted diamonds set off with a great number of small gems.
According to experts, the necklace was made for Catherine the Great in the second half of the eighteenth century. After her death in 1796, the necklace was kept at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.
After the 1917 Revolution the necklace was confiscated by the Soviet Power, and in 1925 sold in the West, which was common practice at the time. Precious jewelry and masterpieces of art had been put up for sale by the Bolsheviks in order to get hard currency for the industrialization of the country.
All trace of Catherine II's necklace was lost in1927, when it was bought by a local jeweler at an auction in London, who re-sold it later to a private collector. As rumor has it, lately it belonged to one of Europe's royal families.
To all appearances, having found a new owner, the diamond necklace of the Russian empress will again disappear for many years.
An anonymous collector paid 2.036 million Swiss Francs ($1.535 million) for the jewelry masterpiece – the necklace with 27 big silver-mounted diamonds set off with a great number of small gems.
According to experts, the necklace was made for Catherine the Great in the second half of the eighteenth century. After her death in 1796, the necklace was kept at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.
After the 1917 Revolution the necklace was confiscated by the Soviet Power, and in 1925 sold in the West, which was common practice at the time. Precious jewelry and masterpieces of art had been put up for sale by the Bolsheviks in order to get hard currency for the industrialization of the country.
All trace of Catherine II's necklace was lost in1927, when it was bought by a local jeweler at an auction in London, who re-sold it later to a private collector. As rumor has it, lately it belonged to one of Europe's royal families.
To all appearances, having found a new owner, the diamond necklace of the Russian empress will again disappear for many years.
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