Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
Today marks the centenary of the Death of Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria, who passed away on this day in 1924! The youngest child of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Archduchess Marie Valerie married her third cousin and possessed a magnificent jewellery collection, which included her magnificent Köchert Pearl and Diamond Tiara!
The Köchert Pearl and Diamond Tiara is composed of three open-work plaques each set with a drop-shaped natural pearl to the old-cut diamond border and interlinking diamond ribbon surround, detaching to form three brooches, the central piece also forming a pendant with optional pearl drop, mounted in silver and gold, with brooch and necklace fittings. The original Tiara had two additional plaques, set on a detachable diamond bandeau and was topped with pearls.
The Tiara was acquired by Archduchess Marie Valerie in 1913, the year after the Wedding of her daughter, Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska, to Count Georg von Waldburg zu Zeil und Hohenems, who wore the Tiara for a portrait shortly afterwards.
The Köchert Pearl and Diamond Tiara remained with Archduchess Marie Valerie’s descendants until 2005, when it appeared at Auction at Christie’s in Geneva, selling for CHF 252,000 over an estimate of CHF 55,000 – CHF 75,000.
While the Tiara seems to have initially been acquired by the Albion Art Institute, it appears to her currently owned by the Qatar Museum Authority, and has been exhibited a handful of times in recent years, most notably at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2014.
More recently, another Köchert Pearl Tiara given to Archduchess Marie Valerie as a Wedding Gift in 1890 was auctioned in Vienna in 2019, a year after a Köchert Diamond Bow Tiara commissioned by Archduchess Marie Valerie for the wedding of her daughter, Archduchess Hedwig, and Count Bernhard of Stolberg-Stolberg in 1918, was also sold at Auction. Both had remained with the family until being sold, while a Köchert Emerald Brooch was sold to the Princess of Réthy in the 1940s.