French Queen Marie Antoinette pearl and diamond pendant auctioned for record $36m
A pearl and diamond pendant that belonged to ill-fated has been sold for $36m (£28m) in what Sotheby's auction house says is a world record for a pearl, BBC reported.
The star lot at Sotheby's Geneva show was bought after a fierce bidding war. It had been valued at about $2m. It was part of a major collection of jewellery sold by Italy's royal Bourbon-Parma house.
Some of the jewels had not been seen in public for 200 years.
Sotheby's called Wednesday's auction in Geneva as "one of the most important royal jewellery collections ever to appear on the market".
Marie Antoinette was an Austrian princess before her marriage to France's King Louis XVI. Her extravagant lifestyle turned her into a hate figure in the years leading up to the French Revolution, when many French people could barely afford to feed their families.
She smuggled out her jewellery to her family in Austria before her failed attempt to flee France with Louis XVI and their children. She was guillotined in 1793 at the age of 37.