Important and Exquisite Fancy Gray-Blue diamond and coloured diamond tie pin, early 20th century

Ferdinand I, Tsar of Bulgaria (1861-1948)

Princess Eudoxia of Bulgaria (1898-1985)

A Tsar’s Treasure: Ferdinand of Bulgaria (1861-1948)

By Vincent Meylan

On 5 October 1908, Prince Ferdinand of Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha, sovereign Prince of Bulgaria since 1887, was proclaimed Tsar. After 480 years of Ottoman occupation, Bulgaria finally became completely independent. In 1879, the Turkish government had agreed to a constitution granting a degree of autonomy to Bulgaria and even allowing the country to choose a ruling Prince, but Bulgaria had to wait another 29 years before receiving its complete independence. For this historic event, Ferdinand had chosen Tarnovo, the ancient capital of the second Bulgarian Empire. Unfortunately, hardly anything was left of the palace of the medieval Tsars of Bulgaria as Tarnovo had been burned by the Ottomans in 1393.

In 1879, the capital of Bulgaria was transferred to Sofia, but even there the Royal palaces were not large buildings. Thus, the new ruler was living in relatively humble surroundings. His way of life had nothing to do with that of his Royal cousins: Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria in Vienna, King Edward VII of England in London or King Alfonso XIII of Spain in Madrid. However, in one very specific sphere, Ferdinand of Bulgaria could compete with all the crowned heads of Europe, and that was in jewellery. He was a fanatical collector. His great-great niece, Isabelle d’Orléans-Bragance, Comtesse de Paris (1911-2003) recalled in one of her books of memoires: ‘Uncle Ferdinand was an extraordinary character. He was both a distinguished botanist and a famous ornithologist. He could speak about ten different languages and during the gala he talked a long time with my husband, the Comte de Paris, and at the same time was playing with precious stones that he always carried in his pockets, among them a superb pair of sapphire cufflinks with the French Royal coat of arms engraved on them.’

The most important pieces in his collection were a tiara, necklace and earrings, set with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. This parure had been created by the famous jeweller Köchert of Vienna for the wedding to his first wife Princess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parme in 1893. They had been a gift from the Bulgarian government. In 1907, after the death of his mother, Princess Clémentine of Orléans, daughter of the last French King Louis Philippe I, Ferdinand also inherited some historic pieces she had bought following the auction of the French Crown Jewels in 1887, including an impressive pearl and diamond corsage brooch (recently acquired by the Louvre) and an important pair of sapphire and diamond earrings (private collection). Ferdinand also owned a magnificent diamond parure designed as a garland of diamond-set flowers, a high tiara, a double row rivière necklace and a pair of long chandelier earrings. His and his mother’s names can be found in the sales-ledgers of all the leading jewellers of their time ranging from Boucheron, Bapst and Mellerio in Paris to Köchert in Vienna and Fabergé in St Petersburg.

The second half of the XIXth century was a very interesting time for jewellery collectors as many Royal collections were appearing at auction, even before the sale of the French Crown Jewels in 1887. In 1874, the extraordinary collection of the last Duke of Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel was sold in Geneva. The catalogue mentions many white and coloured diamonds of different sizes. Lot 42 describes 10 yellow and brown diamonds for a total weight of 14 carats. Among the rings, described without the weight of the stones, lot 178 is a blue diamond, lot 180 is a yellow diamond, lot 184 is a green diamond. In 1878 and 1879, the collections of the exiled Queen Isabella of Spain and her mother, Queen Dowager Christina, were sold in Paris.

Although Bulgaria was not a rich country at the time, Prince Ferdinand and his family possessed a vast fortune which allowed them to indulge their passion for jewellery. His grandmother, Princess Antoinette of Kohary (1797-1862) had been a very rich heiress. She was the last of the Kohary family which owned one of the three largest fortunes of Hungary. In 1815, she married Prince Ferdinand of Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha in Vienna. Ferdinand was relatively poor for a Prince, but made up for this via his extensive family connections. One of his sisters, the Duchess of Kent, was the mother of Queen Victoria. His brother Ernst, the future Duke of Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha, was the father of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband. Another brother, Leopold, was engaged to Princess Charlotte of Great Britain and later became the first King of the Belgians.

Antoinette and Ferdinand had four children. In 1837, their older son married the Queen of Portugal. Their second son August, the heir to the Kohary estates, married Princess Clémentine of Orléans in 1843. Clémentine was a wealthy heiress in her own right. Her father, King Louis-Philippe, had amassed a considerable fortune which he shared amongst his children when he came to the throne in 1830. In 1872, Clémentine finally received the enormous forest surrounding the château d’Amboise in Touraine. She also inherited a large share of the fortune of her aunt, Madame Adélaïde (1777-1847).

Some of the jewels in this collection belonged to Princess Clémentine. The most remarkable is the bracelet decorated with three fleur-de-lys motifs set with rubies, diamonds and sapphires, which represent the combination of the political ideologies supported by the Orléans family. According to them, a monarchy was the best form of government for France, as long as it agreed to uphold the values of the Revolution symbolised by the tricolore flag. The other branch of the French Royal Bourbon family stood for a more traditional line. The fleur-de-lys had to be white as the Royal flag had been before the Revolution. For them the monarchy was only acceptable as long as it was ordained by God.

Paradoxically, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who was the son of an Orléans Princess, married a Bourbon Princess, Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma, in 1893. The Dukes of Parma were a junior line of the Spanish Royal family, who in turn was a junior line of the French Bourbon dynasty. The Bourbons of Parma had inherited the small Italian Duchy through Elisabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain (1692-1766). However, in 1893 Robert, Duke of Parma had lost his crown and was living in exile in Austria. He also owned a large estate called Villa Delle Pianore in the Italian province of Lucca. He was even richer than the Sachsen-Coburg. In 1864, following the death of his mother, Princess Louise of Artois, Duchess of Parma, he had received the majority share in her fortune. Then in 1883, his uncle the Comte de Chambord, last of the senior Bourbon line, also left him three quarters of his considerable fortune. From his mother, Duke Robert inherited a vast collection of jewels, the lion’s share of which were sold at Sotheby’s Geneva in November 2018. 

In 1886, Duke Robert of Parma also received a large quantity of jewels following the death of his aunt, the Comtesse de Chambord. In her last will and testament, dated 28th of May 1885, she mentions him as the heir of two diamond rivière necklaces ‘Que j’ai fait monter les prenant du grand diadème de ma tante, la comtesse de Marnes’ (‘which I had set using diamonds from the great tiara I inherited from my aunt, the comtesse de Marnes’, source: Dernières volontés de son altesse royale madame la Comtesse de Chambord, Staatsarchiv, Vienna). Comtesse de Marnes was the title used in exile by Madame Royale, the Duchess of Angoulême (1778-1851), daughter of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. The diamond tiara mentioned by the Comtesse de Chambord is extremely famous. It was set with diamonds gifted by King Louis XVIII to his niece the Duchess of Angoulême. When she died in exile, she left it to her nephew the Comte de Chambord who decided to remove all the diamonds from the tiara to use them as gifts to his many nephews. About five diamond necklaces were created. Two of them were left by the Comtesse de Chambord to Duke Robert in 1886. The diamond rivière included in this sale may be one of these two necklaces. Unfortunately, the Comtesse de Chambord does not mention the number of diamonds included in the rivières she left to her nephew.

Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma, Princess of Bulgaria, died in 1899 aged only 29. Her jewels were inherited by her four children, the future Tsar Boris III (1894-1943), Kyril (1895-1945), Eudoxia (1898-1985) and Nadejda (1899-1958). Tsar Ferdinand survived his first wife by 49 years, dying in Coburg, Germany on the 10 September 1948. He had to leave Bulgaria after being deposed for choosing to side with Germany during World War I. Fortunately, he was allowed to take his private fortune and jewellery collection with him, which his family inherited following his death and the collapse of the Bulgarian monarchy after World War II. This auction features a large number of these jewels which have never been seen or sold before.