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The Crown of Louis XV is the sole surviving crown from the French ancien regime among the French Crown Jewels.
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The Crown of Louis XV is the sole surviving crown from the French ancien regime among the French Crown Jewels.
The crown was created for King Louis XV in 1722. It was used at his coronation and was embellished with diamonds from the Royal Collection.
The new crown was made by Laurent Ronde, the French Crown jeweller. It originally contained a collection of Mazarin Diamonds, the Sancy diamond in the fleur-de-lis at the top of the arches, and the famous 'Regent' diamond, which was set in the front of the crown, as well as hundreds of other precious diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.
All of France's about 20 crowns of the Ancient Regime, kept in the treasury of Saint-Denis, including the one said of Saint Louis or of Charlemagne, were destroyed in 1793 during the French revolution. The crown of Louis XV was the only one to survive and counts, with those of the 19th century, among the only six remaining French crowns. It was used by Charles X at his 1825 Coronation in Reims, the last occasion a French monarch was formally crowned.
In 1885 the French Third Republic decided to sell the Crown Jewels. Given its historic importance, the crown of Louis XV was kept, though its precious stones were replaced by glass.
Media related to Crown of Louis XV of France at Wikimedia Commons
The Hope Diamond is a 45.52 carats diamond extracted in the 17th century from the Kollur Mine in Guntur, India. It is blue in color due to trace amounts of boron. Its exceptional size has revealed new information about the formation of diamonds.
Crown jewels are the objects of metalwork and jewellery in the regalia of a current or former monarchy. They are often used for the coronation of a monarch and a few other ceremonial occasions. A monarch may often be shown wearing them in portraits, as they symbolize the power and continuity of the monarchy. Additions to them may be made, but since medieval times the existing items are typically passed down unchanged as they symbolize the continuity of the monarchy.
A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, particularly in Commonwealth countries, as an abstract name for the monarchy itself, as distinct from the individual who inhabits it. A specific type of crown is employed in heraldry under strict rules. Indeed, some monarchies never had a physical crown, just a heraldic representation, as in the constitutional kingdom of Belgium.
The Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, originally the Crown Jewels of England, are a collection of royal ceremonial objects kept in the Jewel House at the Tower of London, which include the coronation regalia and vestments worn by British monarchs.
St Edward's Crown is the centrepiece of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. Named after Saint Edward the Confessor, versions of it have traditionally been used to crown English and British monarchs at their coronations since the 13th century.
The Imperial State Crown is one of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom and symbolises the sovereignty of the British monarch. It has existed in various forms since the 15th century. The 1937 version is worn by a new monarch for the first time in the royal procession following their coronation and subsequently used at State Openings of Parliament. The crown is adorned with 3,170 precious stones, including the Cullinan II diamond, St Edward's Sapphire, the Stuart Sapphire, and the Black Prince's Ruby.
The French Crown Jewels and Regalia comprise the crowns, orb, sceptres, diadems and jewels that were symbols of Royal or Imperial power between 752 and 1870. These were worn by many Kings and Queens of France as well as Emperor Napoleon. The set was finally broken up, with most of it sold off in 1885 by the Third Republic. The surviving French Crown Jewels, principally a set of historic crowns, diadems and parures, are mainly on display in the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre, France's premier museum and former royal palace, together with the Regent Diamond, the Sancy Diamond and the 105-carat (21.0 g) Côte-de-Bretagne red spinel, carved into the form of a dragon. In addition, some gemstones and jewels are on display in the Treasury vault of the Mineralogy gallery in the National Museum of Natural History.
The Austrian Crown Jewels are the regalia and vestments worn by the Holy Roman Emperor, and later by the Emperor of Austria, during the coronation ceremony and other state functions. The term refers to the following objects: the crowns, sceptres, orbs, swords, rings, crosses, holy relics and royal robes, as well as several other objects connected with the ceremony. The collection dates from the 10th to the 19th centuries, and it reflects more than a thousand years of European history. It is kept in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria.
The Imperial crown of Russia, also known as the great imperial crown, was used for the coronation of the monarchs of Russia from 1762 until the Russian monarchy's abolition in 1917. The great imperial crown was first used in the coronation by Catherine the Great, and it was last worn at the coronation of Nicholas II. It was displayed prominently next to Nicholas II on a cushion at the State Opening of the Russian Duma inside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in 1906. It survived the 1917 revolution and ensuing civil war and is currently on display in Moscow at the Kremlin Armoury's State Diamond Fund.
The Iranian National Jewels, originally the Iranian Crown Jewels, include elaborate crowns, thirty tiaras, and numerous aigrettes, a dozen bejeweled swords and shields, a number of unset precious gems, numerous plates and other dining services cast in precious metals and encrusted with gems, and several other more unusual items collected or worn by the Persian monarchs from the 16th century and on. The collection is housed at the Treasury of National Jewels, situated inside the Central Bank of Iran on Tehran's Ferdowsi Street.
The Crown of Charlemagne was a name given to the ancient coronation crown of Kings of the Franks, and later Kings of France after 1237.
The Crown of Napoleon was a coronation crown manufactured for Napoleon and used in his coronation as Emperor of the French on December 2, 1804. Napoleon called this crown the "Crown of Charlemagne", which was the name of the ancient royal coronation crown of France that had been destroyed during the French Revolution. This name allowed Napoleon to compare himself to the famed medieval monarch Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor.
The only surviving original piece of the Polish crown jewels from the time of the Piast dynasty is the ceremonial sword Szczerbiec. It is currently on display along with other preserved royal items at the Wawel Royal Castle Museum in Kraków.
The Regent Diamond is a 140.64-carat (28.128 g) diamond owned by the French state and on display in the Louvre, worth £48,000,000 as of 2015.
Sweden's regalia are kept deep in the vaults of the Royal Treasury, underneath the Royal Palace in Stockholm, in a museum that is open to the public. The crowns and coronets have not been worn by Swedish royalty since 1907, but they are still displayed at weddings, christenings and funerals.
Regalia of the Russian tsars are the insignia of tsars and emperors of Russia, who ruled from the 13th to the 19th century. Over the centuries, the specific items used by Tsars changed greatly; the largest such shift occurred in the 18th century, when Peter the Great reformed the state to align it more closely with Western European monarchies.
The Galerie d'Apollon is a large and iconic room of the Louvre Palace, on the first (upper) floor of a wing known as the Petite Galerie. Its current setup was first designed in the 1660s. It has been part of the Louvre Museum since the 1790s, was completed under the lead of Félix Duban in the mid-19th century, and has housed the museum's collection of the French Crown Jewels since 1887.
The Georgian Crown Jewels were the regalia and vestments worn by the monarchs of Georgia during the coronation ceremony and at other state functions. The last Georgian monarchs, Heraclius II and George XII, had their regalia invested, respectively in 1783 and 1798, from the Russian tsars, their official protectors. Of these royal jewels—a crown, sword, and scepter—only the latter staff survives, in the collection of the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow.
The Treasury of Saint-Denis, kept at the Basilica of Saint-Denis in Paris until the French Revolution, was the main repository of the regalia of the Kingdom of France, including the ancien régime portion of what are now known as the French Crown Jewels. Its surviving items are presently scattered between the Louvre, the Cabinet des Médailles of the French National Library, and other museums.
The scepter of Charles V, also known in the early modern period as scepter of Charlemagne, is one of the most prominent preserved regalia of the Kingdom of France. It was donated by Charles V to the abbey of Saint-Denis on 7 May 1380, shortly before his death. It has been used since for the coronation (sacre) of nearly all monarchs of France until Charles X, only excepting Charles VII and Henri IV. It has been kept at the Louvre since 5 December 1793.