While the idea of receiving a piece of jewellery could be the ultimate gift, sometimes it comes with more baggage than it is worth. And for one opal ring, it seems that it may have come complete with a curse for one royal family.
Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, was an Italian aristocrat who was incredibly well-connected in European society. She was known for her exceptional beauty, and she attracted a string of admirers, including several royals.
(Pierre-Louis Pierson, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)
In the mid 1850s, Virginia travelled to Paris to help promote Italian unification. And at the French court, she was immediately popular. She would go on to have an affair with King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and would be the mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France. She also spent time with the future King Alfonso XII of Spain.
The countess presented Alfonso with a large opal ring. The opal with a hint of colour at the centre was set in filigree gold. And that’s where the tale of bad luck begins.
(By Beauchy y Rodriguez photography, Public Domain, Wiki Commons)
Alfonso had fallen in love with and married Princess Mercedes of Orleans, and he gave the ring to her as a gift soon after their wedding. Queen Mercedes died a few months later. She had been suffering from typhoid fever.
King Alfonso then gave the ring to his grandmother, Queen Maria Christina, who then also died mere months after wearing the ring.
(Wiki Commons)
The ring then passed to King Alfonso’s sister, Infanta Pilar, who was a hugely popular member of the royal family. She was just 18 years old and had long been linked to Napoleon, Prince Imperial, the heir to the deposed French Emperor, Napoleon III. In June 1879, he was killed in the Anglo-Zulu war. Pilar was heartbroken and was soon packed off on a restorative holiday with her sisters. Weeks later, she died unexpectedly. She most likely had tuberculosis but rumours soon began that she had died of a broken heart.
The next person to receive the ring from King Alfonso XII was the sister of Queen Mercedes. Alfonso had been devastated at the death of his queen but he was also in charge of a precarious throne and pressure resumed for him to marry again within months of his wife’s death. He settled on her sister, Princess Maria Christina, who agreed to become his second queen. He gave her the ring during their courtship and, within months, she had died of tuberculosis.
(By Antoni Caba – Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, Public Domain, Wiki Commons)
The Spanish king had married again but his new wife, Queen Maria Christina, isn’t known to have worn the ring. In November 1885, when Maria Christina was pregnant, Alfonso XII died, at the age of 27. He had been suffering from tuberculosis but his condition was worsened by a sudden illness.
Five months later, Queen Maria Christina gave birth to a son who immediately became King Alfonso XIII of Spain. His reign was tumultuous and he went into exile in 1931. The Spanish Civil War that followed led to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Spain’s monarchy was abolished and not revived until the death of Franco who passed his power to Alfonso’s grandson, Juan Carlos I, who would help bring democracy to Spain.
The whereabouts of the opal ring remain a mystery.
