Bidding has begun on Monday and will ended on Tuesday
Jewels that belonged to the family of the Bulgarian king Ferdinand will be sold at an auction in Geneva. The bidding, which is organized by the auction house “Sotheby’s”, began on Monday evening and will continue on Tuesday. It is being touted as one of the most significant sales in recent years of valuables belonging to nobles. The auction is entitled “Vienna 1900: Imperial and Royal Collection” and includes over 200 jewels and precious stones associated with the Habsburg dynasty. The sale is expected to raise between $3 million and $7 million.
The Daily Mail reveals that some of the jewels were saved from being looted by the Red Army thanks to the ingenuity and courage of the Bulgarian princess Eudokia. As the Soviet troops approached Bulgaria, she realized that the end of the monarchy was near. He decides to save some of the gorgeous family jewelry. He sewed them into cloth and put them in an iron box, which he buried in the garden of his house in Sofia’s “Izgrev” district. At that time, her father had already abdicated and was in Germany. Her brother Tsar Boris III, who took over the crown from him, died suddenly of a heart attack and his infant son Tsar Simeon II ascended the throne, but the country is governed by a Regency Council. The members of the monarchical family are subjected to repression by the new communist government. In 1946, they were allowed to leave Bulgaria. Eudokia is informed that she is not allowed to carry anything with her except the clothes on her back. However, her daughter-in-law Queen Joanna was given permission to take some belongings for her two children – Maria Luisa and Simeon. The princess uses this. While her guard sleeps, she digs the canvas bag of jewelry from the garden and stuffs it into the meager luggage the two women and two children take into exile.
“Despite having very little money, she made her way to Switzerland, traveling there by truck. From there he contacted the husband of his younger sister Nadezhda, who lives not far from their father in Germany. They help her reach the former Bulgarian king Ferdinand and not long after, the jewels were deposited in a German bank, where they were discovered in 2023,” the British newspaper wrote. They were in the cloth bag in which Eudokia sewed them and were never worn again.
Since she had no children of her own, the jewelry is believed to belong to her sister Nadezhda’s children, Duke Alexander Eugen and Duchess Sophia von Württemberg, with whose family she lived. Among them are emerald and diamond cufflinks presented to Ferdinand I by Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the monarch’s pectoral cross and a gold watch. The jewelry starts at between $3,000 and $30,000. In the Sotheby’s auction, dedicated to the nobles who left Vienna, there are, however, far more expensive items such as pearl and diamond necklaces, for which bidding will start at $245,000.
2023-11-07 17:20:00
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