Quebec wants to honour 'unique' link with Habsburgs by putting Florentine Diamond on display
Quebec would like the storied Florentine Diamond, as well as other jewels deposited secretly in a Quebec bank vault by the last Empress of Austria, to be on permanent display in the Quebec National Museum of Fine Arts.
One of the Empress’s descendants expressed gratitude to Quebec in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, saying the province took her and her eight children in when they fled the Nazis.
“We thought it was very nice (of the family) to say they were grateful for Quebec adopting them as they ran away from the war,” Catherine Boucher, attachée de presse in the office of Mathieu Lacombe, Quebec’s minister of culture, told National Post.
Boucher also shared a statement from Lacombe.
“This is a truly unique story that connects Quebec to the Habsburg family. We can all be proud of the recognition and trust that the family places in us. We are therefore working with the Quebec National Museum of Fine Arts to find a way for these jewels to be displayed and accessible to the public,” says Lacombe.
The ministry has begun discussions with the museum about exhibiting the jewels. But Boucher says it’s far too soon to provide any details.
Meanwhile, the family has not made a final decision about where the jewels will be displayed, according to a spokesperson for the family.
“The family has committed to public display of the collection in Canada,” Tom Becker, senior managing director of strategic communications with FTI Consulting in Toronto said in an email to NP late Friday.
However, he notes that at this time “no specific location has been selected and the plans for how best to display the collection is in its earliest stages.”
Few gemstones have been laden with the history carried by the Florentine Diamond, according to gemmary.com , a website that curates stories about antique and vintage jewelry. The pale yellow, 137.27-carat diamond was once one of Europe’s largest gems, adorning the crowns of emperors and kings.
It was among the Austrian Crown Jewels until the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Soon after, it became shrouded in mystery, with its whereabouts unknown for more than a century.
However, reports The New York Times , the real story was recently told by three Habsburg descendants. It turns out the precious gem has been in a bank vault in Canada since the family fled here during the Second World War.
Austrian Empress Zita (Habsburg) escaped the Nazi onslaught with her eight children, arriving in the United States in 1940. The Empress carried the jewels with her in a small cardboard suitcase, family members told the Times.
With American help, the family then travelled to Canada, where they settled in a modest house in Quebec. Eighty-five years later, the family says it wants to display the Florentine Diamond and other jewels in Canada to thank the country for taking in the Empress and her children.
“It should be part of a trust here in Canada,” Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen told the Times. “It should be on exhibition in Canada sometimes, so that people can actually see those pieces.”
The story of the Florentine Diamond goes back to the powerful Medici family of Italy, according to langantiques.com , an antique jewelry website run by a San Francisco jewelry firm. Despite the Medici family’s best efforts to keep their jewels in Florence, the Florentine Diamond became part of the Austrian Crown Jewels by 1743. The diamond remained a part of those Crown Jewels until the Hapsburg Empire came to an end after the First World War.
Then, as tensions built across Europe again, former Austrian Empress, Zita, wife of the last Emperor, Karl I (who died in 1922), opposed the growing Nazi threat. Her son, Prince Otto, offered his services to the Austrian First Republic, which was struggling to remain independent of the Third Reich. When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Otto was declared an enemy of the state.
Zita fled with her eight children, arriving in the United States in 1940. The Empress carried the jewels with her in a small cardboard suitcase.
The family then traveled to Canada where it settled in Quebec.
“My grandmother felt very safe — she could breathe finally,” Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen told the Times about the arrival of the royal family in Quebec. “I assume that, at that stage, the little suitcase went into a bank safe, and that was it. And in that bank safe, it just stayed.”
In 1953, Zita returned to Europe but she left the jewels in the care of the Quebec bank.
This is where the story picks up today.
Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen, 64, a grandson of Karl I, said in an interview with the Times that the secret of the diamond was kept for decades, respecting Empress Zita’s wishes. She told only her sons Robert and Rodolphe about the diamond’s location, asking them to keep it undisclosed for 100 years after her husband’s death.
Before the sons died, reports the Times, they passed the information to their own sons. But for years afterward, the family says it declined to respond to queries about the diamond out of a desire to guard it.
von Habsburg-Lothringen only recently learned about the existence of the jewels from two cousins — Robert’s son, Lorenz von Habsburg-Lothringen, 70, and Rodolphe’s son, Simeon von Habsburg-Lothringen, 67.
All three met at the Quebec bank where the diamond and other precious jewels have resided in a vault. As they live in Europe, this was the first time they viewed the diamond.
The Florentine Diamond was wrapped separately from the other jewels, but it could have been set in a large, jewelled brooch, which was among the items. The family says there is no plan to sell the diamond. It has declined to speculate on the jewel’s value.
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