Paying homage to its association with the French court, the historic maison has incorporated an iconic motif from the queen’s private apartments.
French jeweler Mellerio chose Versailles for the grand reveal of a necklace that took inspiration from queen and client Marie Antoinette’s famously flamboyant tastes. Worth just under $1 million, the necklace, which debuted earlier this month, pays tribute to a central motif in a tapestry that hung in the palace: the pineapple.
Twenty-two precious stones of various cuts, including vibrant sapphires, tanzanites, tourmalines, morganites and citrines, create a painterly color palette that references the fabrics in Marie Antoinette’s private apartments.
“We wanted to get as close to the queen’s style and taste as possible,” says Mellerio managing director Christophe Mélard. “Marie Antoinette had a lively imagination and loved the gardens and parks at Versailles, all of which inspired her interior design choices. We also wanted to pay tribute to the history and craftsmanship of the maison.”
Alongside the necklace, the Jardin des Rêves parure includes a gold and gemstone pineapple earring. The pendant, which connects to the necklace with an oval, Mellerio-cut diamond, is removable and can be worn as a second earring.
Luscious luxury
Founded in 1616, Mellerio is a family-owned company that can trace its history back 15 generations. In 1777, Jean-Baptiste Mellerio was selling jewels at the gates of Versailles out of a wooden trunk with leather straps known as a marmotte, when the queen passed by and bought several pieces. He eventually became a supplier to Marie Antoinette and the court of France, beginning a history of royal association for the house.
Mellerio is widely believed to be the world’s oldest family-owned jewelry company and the first to open a store on Paris’s Place Vendôme, now a center of the luxury-jewelry industry. Laure-Isabelle Mellerio, the house’s chairman and artistic director, has overseen its designs since 2016.
Housed in a green suede version of the original marmotte trunk, the necklace is a lively interpretation of royal style, blending antique-style gobstopper stones with delicate gold filigree fruit and pavé-set leaves. Pineapples were new to France in the 1770s, when Marie Antoinette was decorating her private apartments, and although relatively widely available, they were considered an expensive, fashionable luxury.
Today, visitors to Versailles can tour the suite of rooms reserved for the queen and her children, and see the Great Pineapple fabric by textile producer Manufacture de Jouy on its walls and upholstery. Tucked behind the state apartments and accessible via a concealed door in her state bedroom, the recently renovated apartments include pieces of the original antique fabrics alongside new wall coverings and drapes that were woven in Lyons to match Maison Pierre Frey’s original as closely as possible.
Back in style
The last queen of the Ancien Régime before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette is currently enjoying a cultural moment.
Last year, Sotheby’s auctioned a necklace believed to be linked to the “diamond necklace affair” of 1784 to ’85, in which Marie Antoinette’s reputation suffered after charlatans stole, dismantled and sold a necklace that King Louis XV had originally commissioned for his mistress Madame du Barry in 1772. This past June, a 10-carat pink diamond that the queen’s only surviving daughter once owned and that JAR later set in a ring brought in $14 million at Christie’s, nearly double its high estimate.
Meanwhile, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is preparing to open a blockbusting new exhibition in September called “Marie Antoinette Style,” featuring clothes and jewelry that have never been on public display outside of France. It seems that for Mellerio and many others, the influence of a queen born 270 years ago is still as strong as ever.
Main image: The launch event for Mellerio’s $1 million necklace reveal in Paris. (Mellerio)