More Pearls, Please

From the Yorkshire Trip

Pearls followed us as we traveled through Yorkshire. Here is a sequel to a former, recent entry. I went down the rabbit hole to do some research on Charles I's earring and bumped into these beauties.

It is reverential to contemplate the allure and luster of pearls on a rainy day. The variation of the pearl's body color, one white and the other gray, are captivating.

This historical pair once formed part of the famous collection of Queen Henrietta Maria (1609-1699), wife of Charles I, King of England (1625-1649). They were presented to her by her parents, King Henri IV of France and Maria de Medici in 1625 to celebrate her marriage to Charles I. (Here is a laugh. Her parents loathed each other and hardly were ever in the same room.) Given that, Henrietta, at 15, wasn't ready for marriage with poor Charles, who was painfully shy, limped from rickets and stuttered. Still, they managed to find a rather devoted path in marriage and had seven children. I never think about them having such a large family as Charles II and James II take up so much room but look at their sublime, youngest sister, Henrietta Ann (Minette), made immortal in a painting by Peter Lely.

(She is not wearing the Mancinis but a lovely pair of chandelier pearls. Henrietta Ann negotiated the secret Treaty of Dover between her brother, Charles II and Louis XIV...I think she was poisoned by her husband...oh, to be but a fly on the wall.)

Though many of her jewels were sold to finance the Civil War in England, Henrietta Maria resisted selling her cherished earrings. Not until she was an impoverished widow living in exile, did she part with them, selling them to her 19 year old nephew Louis XIV, King of France. When Louis XIV presented them to Maria Mancini (1640-1715), the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, hoping to win her favor, they became, The Mancini Pearls.

It is even more of a wonder to follow these pearls through their journey from one royal ear to the next...and then, vanish.

The Mancini Pearls have been depicted numerous times in portraits of both Queen Henriette Maria and Maria Mancini by Van Dyck.

The pearls are described as a pair of apparently identical drop-shaped white nacreous (having the luster of mother of pearl) pearls, weighing approximately 200 grains each, 50 carats.

"The two pearls have been set as the centerpiece of two almost identical pearl and diamond pendant earrings, the pearls forming the dangling pendants, suspended from the diamond-set ear-studs, by a bell cap arrangement also studded with diamonds. The design on the ear-studs is a quatrefoil and three circles. The quatrefoil is an ornamental design of four leaves, resembling a clover leaf; the central largest leaf being covered on one side by three large circles. The three pear-shaped leaves of the quatrefoil are set with pear-cut diamonds, and the fourth rounded leaf below is set with a round-shaped diamond. The three circles are occupied by round brilliant-cut diamonds."

The Mancini Pearls are believed to have belonged originally to the Medici family of Florence, who produced three popes, many rulers of Florence and Tuscany, and two queens of France, Catherine de Medici (1547-1559) and Marie de Medici (1600-1610), the queen consorts of Kings Henry II and Henry IV of France respectively, through whom other members of the royalty of France, Spain and England descended. The Mancini Pearls entered France in 1600 through Marie de Medici, the queen consort of Henry IV The pearls had entered the Medici family after 1498, the year pearls were discovered for the first time in the New World, in Venezuela by Christopher Columbus, the possible sources of the pearl could have been Venezuela, Colombia or Panama, apart from the traditional sources of the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Mannar. The pearls were crafted into earrings, most likely in Florence.

Eleanor of Toledo by Bronzino-the wife of Cosimo I 16th century wears the pearls in her famous portrait. She was buried in the dress but the pearls continue to be passed on.

Marie d'Medici, sporting the Mancini Pearls, by Peter Paul Rubens in the 17th century (The Prado-Madrid) She brings them to Paris upon her wretched marriage to Henri IV . He married Marie (October 1600) Henri, little lamb build the Place Royale, the Place des Vosges from 1605 to 1612 to live apart from her.

The earrings did not work their magic?

Peter Paul Rubens, The Presentation of the Portrait of Marie de’ Medici (detail), c. 1622–25, oil on canvas, 394 x 295 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Still, Marie bore Heni six children, including the future Louis XIII. Henri was unfaithful to her and insisted that she raise his illegitimate children along with her own. Jewelry is not everything.

Henriette Maria (daughter of Henri IV of France and Marie d'Medici) by Anthony van Dyke (London National Gallery) 18th Century

You can just barely see the pearls but the painting is so fetching that I had to include it.

Henrietta Maria- Queen consort of King Charles I by Anthony van Dyke

She wears the pearls, a wedding gift from her parents, in almost all of her paintings.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Charles left London in 1641 and moved toward the north of England, where he set up court in Oxford with the whole family in attendance He began raising an army against Parliament and sent his Queen Henrietta Maria abroad in February 1642, to secure funds and arms for his war efforts. Henrietta Maria carried with her most of the crown jewels and her personal jewelry. Eventually she purchased a ship load of arms and landed in Yorkshire, in the royalist controlled area of northern England in February 1643, and subsequently joined her husband in Oxford but briefly.

When Henrietta Maria fled back to France at the height of the English Civil War, she emptied her jewel caskets and took as many pieces as possible along with her. Her existence in Paris was a far cry from her glory days as Queen of England as she existed on the relatively meager charity of her sister in law Anne of Austria and nephew, Louis XIV.

After her final return to France, at the end of her life, the Mancini Pearl pendant earrings were sold to her nephew King Louis XIV.

Portrait of a Lady said to be Maria Mancini by Jacob Ferdinand Voet ... Isn't she just!

She is certainly flashing those earrings. The young Louis XIV was captivated by the beauty of Marie Mancini fell in love with her, and she reciprocated his advances. A close romantic relationship developed between the two. Louis was determined to marry her. However, the amorous relationship was broken off by the intervention of Cardinal Mazarin, her uncle and Queen Anne, Louis's mother, who did not approve of the marriage. Still, Maria Manchini kept the pearls...and to her husband's surprise, her virginity.

From Maria Manchini's death in 1715 till the earrings surface again in 1979, nothing is known, 264 years...neither where the pearls traveled nor to whom they were given. They surfaced and appeared for sale at a Christie's New York auction, They sold for $253,000. It seems like a trifling in this day and age. You have to wonder what else is out there.

The earrings are 500 years old and have graced the ears of some fairly key players. Keep your eyes pealed.