It would seem that all’s well that ends well in the land of famous jew­els and jew­el­ers. Gem dealer and owner of Fred Leighton, Ralph O. Esmer­ian has sold Empress Eugénie’s dia­mond bow brooch to the Lou­vre. The sale was facil­i­tated by François Curiel, Pres­i­dent of Christie’s Europe who made the fol­low­ing state­ment, “As a French cit­i­zen respon­si­ble for jew­elry at Christie’s, noth­ing could have pleased me more than to nego­ti­ate this sale of national importance…Christie’s is proud to have facil­i­tated this his­toric return.”

I first wrote about this orna­ment in my March 21^st post. The brooch was orig­i­nally made for the Empress, who was the wife of Napoleon III, by François Kramer. The dia­mond bow was auc­tioned off, together with other his­tor­i­cally and cul­tur­ally impor­tant jew­els belong­ing to the French crown, on May 12, 1887 in the Salle des Etats of the Lou­vre. The jewel was pur­chased by renowned New York soci­ety matron, Mrs. Car­o­line Astor; it cost at the time what would be approx­i­mately $136,000 today.

Var­i­ous news media reported that the auc­tion house had spent about $500,000 in pro­mot­ing the legally defeated sale of Esmerian’s col­lec­tion, which included Empress Eugénie’s brooch. Curiel’s vocal enthu­si­asm for the trans­ac­tion is sur­pris­ing; con­sid­er­ing the firm’s unfor­tu­nate role between the match of Esmer­ian vs. Mer­rill Lynch, his response is gen­er­ous indeed.