A 300-carat necklace, whose diamonds have been linked to a scandal involving the last French queen Marie Antoinette, sold Wednesday for nearly $5 million at a Sotheby's auction in Geneva.

The may contain diamonds involved in a scandal surrounding Marie-Antoinette, that would eventually trigger the French Revolution.

Experts say the quality and age of the diamonds match those from the infamous necklace said to have paved the way for Antoinette's eventual demise.

Sotheby's said this month that some of the diamonds in the piece may have come from a necklace that helped precipitate the fall of Marie Antoinette, a member of the Austrian royal family who became the wife of French King Louis XVI. Both were guillotined ...

A mysterious diamond-laden necklace with possible links to a scandal that contributed to the downfall of Marie Antoinette, sold for $4.8 million at an auction in Geneva Wednesday.

How the Affair of the Diamond Necklace changed history—and why 18th-century jewelry remains an eternal holy grail.

Tobias Kormind, managing director of Europe’s largest online diamond jeweller 77 Diamonds, shared his thoughts on the jewellery's historic allure: "A scandalous link to Marie Antoinette and the dramatic end of the French monarchy, this historic necklace, which is unusually intact for a Georgian jewel, has it all."

The piece was at the centre of a scandal in the 1780s known as the 'Diamond Necklace Affair' in which a hard-up noblewoman named Jeanne de la Motte pretended to be the French queen and acquired the necklace in her name without payment.

A diamond-studded necklace thought to be linked to a scandal that hastened the downfall of the doomed 18th century queen of France, Marie Antoinette, sold at auction in Geneva on Wednesday for 4.26 million Swiss francs ($4.

The necklace containing around 300 carats of diamonds was bought by an unidentified woman who put in her bid over the phone, Sotheby's said.