Ruby Diamond – Jewelry of Empress Josephine of France
This single, large laurel branch was made by one of the Empress’s court jewelers – Lemoine around 1805 – probably belonging to a pair.
A list of her jewels, which she received between 1804 and 1807, includes an extensive ruby parure, which also lists two agraffes, which could perhaps be this pair of laurel branches.
This parure was completely set with diamonds and rubies and consisted of:
- a “bandeau tiara”,
- a comb,
- a necklace,
- a pair of earrings,
- a pair of bracelets,
- a belt,
- two shoe buckles
- and two clasps, which, however, are not described in detail!
The branch shown here, consisting of 22 leaves, features a large number of smaller diamonds, 10 magnificent Burmese rubies in a gold setting, and 5 larger diamonds in silver. It measures approximately 17 cm in length.
This large brooch was last shown in 2001 as part of an exhibition at Wartski in London, along with a matching case featuring the monogram ‘J’ beneath a crown. The branch is now in a private London collection.
However, the brooch could also be a later addition, because such a branch, with its dimensions, can also be imagined, with a corresponding pendant, as a fragment of a diadem into which it was incorporated.
This consideration must also take into account the fact that the name “Spray Beauharnais” does not refer exclusively to Joséphine’s provenance. Her daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, also owned magnificent Empire-style jewels, and her son, Eugène, also bore this name, and his family may have owned similar jewelry.
The Empress was generally known for her generosity toward her two children. It was only natural that she commissioned truly ‘imperial gifts’ from leading Parisian jewelers. Perhaps one of her children received a large Napoleonic diadem – in the classicist style of Napoleon, who crowned himself with a laurel branch – which may have included such ruby-studded laurel branches… – certainly an expense that did not hinder Napoleon’s desire to spread his splendor!
There is a personal anecdote from the later period, when the Empress was already living in exile at her castle in Euvre.
One day, she is said to have spread out all her jewelry on a table to show it to her, now only a small circle of ladies-in-waiting, with the words:
“A fate like mine can only befall a woman who was simply dazzled by SUCH jewels.”
By this, she could only have been referring to the financial difficulties she had gotten into, particularly because of her passion for jewelry.
She simply loved these beautiful things too much:
her three-row pearl necklace with 361 pearls; her eight large diamond pairs, one with emeralds and one with rubies; her countless necklaces of turquoise, opals, and coral; all those bracelets, rings, brooches, pendentive bands, cameos, and tiaras.
It certainly seems extravagant that an empress would have her own lapis lazuli dealer, but it becomes more understandable when you consider that Joséphine often had her jewelry made to suit her individual needs or as gifts; fundamentally, she was simply a knowledgeable mineral collector.
In addition to all these expensive pieces, she also loved the simplest costume jewelry and always owned whatever was currently in vogue among Parisian milliners. Fundamentally, one cannot say that she, as Empress, was a squanderer of money, for Josephine bought with great taste, and all these beautiful things ultimately formed nothing less than a large, personal collection of truly valuable objects documenting her time.
