Super Chao

Super Chao 🇧🇪🇨🇳🇬🇧🇵🇭
đź“– Stories behind extraordinary jewels
👑 Royal • Celebrity • Historic Jewelry
đź’Ž Diamantaire | 15+ years in the diamond trade
đź“Ť Antwerp

31/08/2026

A client asked me to find a 2ct oval diamond.

Sounds simple, but with ovals, carat weight is only the starting point. The length-to-width ratio, outline, bow-tie, brightness and overall spread can make two 2ct stones look completely different.

Nice shape, brilliance and fire, and most importantly, it looks lively in person. Sometimes the best stone isn’t the one with the “best” numbers on paper — it’s the one that looks right the moment you see it.

This sapphire weighs almost 100ct, but Cartier once set it sideways.Known as the Bismarck Sapphire Necklace, it centres ...
31/08/2026

This sapphire weighs almost 100ct, but Cartier once set it sideways.

Known as the Bismarck Sapphire Necklace, it centres on a 98.57ct blue sapphire from Burma, now Myanmar. Mona Williams bought the stone in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, during her honeymoon with American businessman Harrison Williams in 1926.

Cartier created the first necklace in 1927, placing the sapphire horizontally. Mona later became Countess von Bismarck, and in 1959 she asked Cartier to redesign the piece. The sapphire was turned vertically, creating the version seen here.

The necklace is made in platinum and set with 312 baguette and round brilliant cut diamonds. Eight smaller square cut sapphires are worked into the design, although they’re easy to miss beside the enormous centre stone.

What I like about this necklace is how restrained it feels for such a large jewel. There’s no complicated floral decoration around the sapphire. The diamond links simply narrow towards the back, keeping all the attention on that deep blue centre stone.

Mona donated the necklace to the Smithsonian in 1967. Today, it’s part of the National Gem Collection at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.



Image source: Public domain

Every sapphire in this royal parure is natural and unheated. More than 200 years later, we are still seeing their origin...
30/08/2026

Every sapphire in this royal parure is natural and unheated. More than 200 years later, we are still seeing their original colour.

This is the Sapphire Parure of Queen Marie Amélie and Queen Hortense, made in Paris sometime between 1800 and 1835. The jeweller and original commissioner are both unknown.

The complete set once included a tiara, necklace, earrings, three brooches, a comb and two bracelets. All the sapphires came from Ceylon and are surrounded by diamonds set in gold.

The 40cm necklace is fully articulated, allowing it to sit naturally around the neck. Parts of the tiara could also be removed and worn as brooches.

The earliest confirmed record shows Louis Philippe, then Duke of Orléans, buying the parure from Hortense de Beauharnais. She was Napoleon’s stepdaughter and the former Queen of Holland. It was later worn by his wife, Queen Marie Amélie, and remained in the Orléans family for generations.

Family stories linked the parure to Empress Joséphine and even Marie Antoinette, but neither claim has ever been proven.

The Louvre acquired the surviving pieces in 1985. On October 19, 2025, the tiara, necklace and one earring were stolen. They have not been publicly recovered.



Image source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

29/08/2026

Imagine trying to match 212 natural pearls before cultured pearls even existed.

This pearl and diamond tiara was made for Empress Eugénie in 1853 by French Crown jeweller Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier. It contains 212 pearls, including 17 pear-shaped examples, along with 1,998 diamonds.

The design places the larger pearls above diamond leaves, almost like fruit growing from silver branches. The finished tiara measures 19cm across and 7cm high.

After the French Crown Jewels were sold in 1887, it entered the Thurn and Taxis collection. The Friends of the Louvre bought it back in 1992 and returned it to France.

On October 19, 2025, the tiara was stolen from the Louvre. As of August 2026, it has not been publicly recovered.

This tiara contains 212 natural pearls and 1,998 diamonds.It was created in Paris in 1853 by Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier...
29/08/2026

This tiara contains 212 natural pearls and 1,998 diamonds.

It was created in Paris in 1853 by Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier for Empress Eugénie, shortly after her marriage to Napoleon III. It was originally paired with a matching pearl and diamond shoulder brooch.

Among its 212 pearls are 17 large pear-shaped examples, while the diamond setting includes 992 rose-cut stones. Since cultured pearls didn’t yet exist commercially, every pearl was naturally formed. Matching so many in colour, lustre and size would have been a huge task.

The design uses seven vertical groups of large pearls, separated by diamond leaves and shield-shaped sections filled with smaller pearls. Along the top, pear-shaped pearls rise above the diamond foliage like fruit growing from silver branches.

The tiara measures about 19cm across and 7cm high. Its diamonds are set in silver, with gold covering the reverse.

This is Eugénie’s 1853 pearl diadem, not her diamond and emerald imperial crown made in 1855. Both were created by Lemonnier, but they are separate pieces.

After the French Crown Jewels were sold in 1887, the tiara entered the collection of the Thurn and Taxis family. In 1992, the Friends of the Louvre bought it at Sotheby’s Geneva and donated it to the museum.

On October 19, 2025, it was stolen from the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon. As of August 2026, it has not been publicly recovered. Fortunately, I was able to take a video this tiara before it got robbed.



Image source: personal image

I took a photo of this beautiful piece at the Louvre.Today, the jewel is missing.This is Empress Eugénie’s Grand Diamond...
28/08/2026

I took a photo of this beautiful piece at the Louvre.

Today, the jewel is missing.

This is Empress Eugénie’s Grand Diamond Bow, created in 1855 by François Kramer, one of the jewellers who worked with the French Crown Diamonds during the reign of Napoleon III.

What we now recognize as an enormous corsage brooch was originally only the centrepiece of something even more extravagant: a diamond belt made with more than 4,000 stones from the French Crown collection.

Eugénie wore the complete belt on at least two important occasions. The first was at Versailles on August 25, 1855, during the reception held for Queen Victoria’s visit to France. She wore it again in 1856 at the Hôtel de Ville for the celebrations surrounding the baptism of her son, the Prince Imperial.

By 1864, however, the Empress had decided that the belt was simply too imposing. She kept its central bow and had it adapted into this extraordinary bodice brooch.

The finished jewel measures approximately 22.2 centimetres from top to bottom and is set with 2,634 diamonds, including old mine, old European and rose-cut stones, mounted in silver-topped gold.

The design imitates a real fabric bow. Its loops appear folded and layered, while two diamond-set ribbons of unequal lengths fall towards the waist. Five graduated diamond cascades hang between them, and the two large tassels at the bottom are made from individually articulated fringes.

That flexibility is one of the most impressive parts of the design. The ribbons, pendants and tassels move independently, allowing the diamonds to catch the light with even the smallest movement of the wearer.

After the French Crown Jewels were sold in 1887, the brooch was purchased for New York society leader Caroline Astor. It later entered the collection of the Duke of Westminster and passed through several generations of the Beauchamp family.

The Louvre finally brought it back to France in 2008.

Then, on October 19, 2025, thieves broke into the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon and stole eight historic jewels—including this brooch. Empress Eugénie’s crown was dropped during the escape and recovered in a damaged condition, but the diamond bow disappeared with the thieves.

As of August 2026, it has not been publicly recovered.

A jewel made for the last Empress of France, sold by the Republic, taken to America, returned to the Louvre—and stolen again 17 years later.

I never imagined that the photograph I took through the museum glass might become a record of a jewel that is no longer there.



Image source: Personal photograph, taken at the Louvre Museum

This crown contains 443 emeralds—and it was never made for a living queen.Known as the Crown of the Andes, it was create...
27/08/2026

This crown contains 443 emeralds—and it was never made for a living queen.

Known as the Crown of the Andes, it was created to adorn a statue of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception in the cathedral of Popayán, Colombia.

The crown weighs approximately 2.4 kilograms and is covered with an estimated 846.15 carats of emeralds. The largest is a 24-carat stone traditionally known as the “Atahualpa emerald.”

Despite the name, there is no reliable evidence proving that this emerald actually belonged to Atahualpa, the last independent emperor of the Inca Empire.

The goldwork is just as remarkable as the stones.

Around the base, repoussé and chased gold forms curling acanthus leaves, vines and flowers. The emeralds are arranged in blossom-shaped clusters, symbolizing the Virgin’s purity. Four imperial arches rise above the diadem, supporting a golden orb and cross—a symbol of Christ’s dominion over the world.

Several pear-shaped emeralds hang freely beneath the arches. When the crowned statue was carried through the streets during religious processions, these stones would have moved gently with it.

The crown was not created all at once.

The lower diadem dates from around 1660, while the arches and orb were added around 1770. Technical research suggests that the cross was originally an earlier pectoral cross and that the crown in its present form may have been assembled during the 19th century from parts of at least three older objects.

For centuries, it formed part of the treasury maintained by the religious confraternity responsible for the Virgin’s image. On important feast days, the statue was dressed in precious garments, covered with jewellery and publicly crowned.

The Church authorized its sale in 1914. By 1936, it had reached the United States, where it appeared in exhibitions and publicity events—including displays at General Motors in Detroit and Macy’s in New York.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired it in 2015.

More than 400 untreated South American emeralds, nearly 350 years of alterations, and 2.4 kilograms of gold and gemstones.

Not a crown for a queen—but a crown made for the Queen of Heaven.



Image source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Public Domain

Most people only see the finished jewel.Behind it are hours of looking, comparing, checking proportions, color, clarity,...
26/08/2026

Most people only see the finished jewel.

Behind it are hours of looking, comparing, checking proportions, color, clarity, cutting and all the small details that can completely change the value of a stone.

This is the less glamorous side of the jewelry world — sitting at a desk, looking closely, and making decisions one stone at a time.

And after all these years, I still enjoy this part of the job.

Sometimes the most interesting stories in jewelry begin right here, long before a stone becomes part of a finished piece.

More than 66 carats of diamonds compose these nine ears of wheat.Created around 1811 by François-Regnault Nitot, the Par...
26/08/2026

More than 66 carats of diamonds compose these nine ears of wheat.

Created around 1811 by François-Regnault Nitot, the Parisian jeweller whose house would later become Chaumet.

The diamonds are old-cut stones set in gold and silver. Instead of arranging them in a rigid, symmetrical crown, Nitot shaped them into overlapping stalks of wheat. Each ear bends in a slightly different direction, giving the tiara the movement of a field stirred by the wind.

Wheat was more than a decorative motif. In classical imagery, it was associated with Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, and represented abundance, fertility, peace and renewal. These meanings made it especially suited to the visual language of the French imperial court.

The tiara is sometimes linked online to Empress Joséphine, who helped make naturalistic and classical jewellery fashionable. However, records associated with this surviving piece connect it more closely with Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon’s second wife. It was delivered in 1811, the year she gave birth to Napoleon’s heir, the King of Rome.

The design is remarkable because it doesn’t depend on one enormous central stone. Hundreds of diamonds work together to reproduce the texture of grain, leaves and slender stems. From a distance, it reads as a silver-white crown; up close, it becomes a piece of botanical sculpture.

Chaumet acquired the tiara in 2011, and it is now one of the oldest surviving jewels in the Chaumet Collection.

It doesn’t look like diamonds arranged to resemble wheat.

It looks like nine real wheat stalks caught in frost.



Image source: Chaumet Collection / Nils Herrmann

The Duke of Windsor supplied almost every stone in this necklace. Cartier supplied the turquoise—and the imagination.Com...
25/08/2026

The Duke of Windsor supplied almost every stone in this necklace. Cartier supplied the turquoise—and the imagination.

Commissioned in Paris in 1947 for Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, the piece is known as the Cartier “Drapery” Necklace.

Its dramatic bib-like design combines 29 amethysts with turquoise cabochons and diamonds, set in twisted 18K and 20K gold with platinum details. The amethysts include 27 emerald-cut stones, an oval stone at the clasp and a large heart-shaped amethyst suspended at the center.

Rather than arranging the gems in a traditional row, Cartier built a flexible openwork structure that falls across the chest like jeweled fabric. Purple and turquoise form the main color contrast, while the diamonds add light between the larger stones.

The choice of materials was unusually bold for high jewellery at the time. Amethyst and turquoise were far less valuable than rubies, sapphires or emeralds, yet Cartier used their color—not their price—to create the impact.

Wallis wore the necklace at a gala held at the Orangerie of Versailles in 1953. After her death, it appeared in the celebrated 1987 auction of the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels and later entered the Cartier Collection.

It’s a necklace that proves an important point: extraordinary jewellery doesn’t always begin with the most expensive stones. Sometimes, it begins with an unforgettable color combination.

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