A series of auctions organized at the start of the twentieth century speaks to the constantly increasing value of pearls.
Belle Époque Auctions
Three auctions in particular made headlines in Paris: the 1904 sale of the jewels of Princess Mathilde Laetitia Wilhelmine Bonaparte, including pearls given by Emperor Napoleon I to her mother, Katharina of Württemberg, Queen of Westphalia, for her wedding; the 1909 sale of the collection of historian and patron Alexandre Alexandrovich Polovtsov, during which a four-strand pearl necklace reached the million-franc threshold for the first time; and the record-breaking sale three years later of the jewels of Abdulhamid II, one of the last sultans of the Ottoman Empire.