A pair of diamond bracelets that belonged to France’s Queen Marie Antoinette sold at auction for 7.46 million Swiss francs ($8.18 million), several times the pre-sale estimate, Christie’s said.

Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s international director of jewelry who conducted the auction, told the Geneva saleroom that the bracelets had stayed in the family for almost 200 years. The buyer was bidding by telephone and not identified.

The hammer price was 6.2 million Swiss francs, but with commission the final price was 7.46 million Swiss francs, Christie’s spokesperson Alexandra Kindermann said.

A blue velvet box bearing a label “bracelets of Queen Marie Antoinette” holds the double bracelets, each composed of three strings of diamonds and a large barrette clasp, for a total of 112 diamonds.

Marie Antoinette, who sent a letter from prison in the Tuileries in Paris saying that a wooden chest with jewels would be sent for safekeeping, was guillotined in 1793. Her surviving daughter Marie Therese, Madame Royale, received the jewels on her arrival in Austria, the auction house said.

The bracelets, which were the property of a European royal family, had been expected to fetch $2 million to $4 million, Christie’s said before the sale.

An Art Deco ruby and diamond bracelet, ordered by the Duke of Windsor from Cartier, and offered to his American wife Wallis Simpson on their first wedding anniversary by the man who gave up the British throne to marry her, failed to find a new owner.

The pre-sale estimate for the Duchess of Windsor bracelet was 1 million to 2 million Swiss francs, the auction house said.

As Lebanon’s national orchestra prepared for its season-opening concert with half its musicians absent, conductor Lubnan Baalbaki faced a dilemma – attempt a piece made for a full ensemble or prepare a smaller version.

The day of the concert, three extra musicians showed up, braving the pressures of an economic crisis that had led dozens of their colleagues to quit the band, and Baalbaki was able to conduct the original score.

“I felt like it was the moment when the Titanic was sinking and [the band] insisted on keeping the music playing despite everything that was happening,” Baalbaki told reporters.

But it is not clear how much longer they will be able to keep going.

The National Symphony Orchestra has not been spared the effects of the financial crisis that has left many people in Lebanon suffering from poverty and struggling to secure basic necessities.

The crisis has been exacerbated by the pandemic and the August 2020 Beirut blast that killed more than 215 people and damaged parts of the city – including the conservatory where the orchestra practices.

As the currency crashed, the roughly 100 musicians in the ensemble watched the value of their wages tumble from $3,000 to around $200.

Most foreign musicians packed their bags and left.

“We used to do very big productions that would cover the entire classical repertoire. Now it’s very difficult,” Baalbaki said.

Wages of those who remain now cover little more than the price of fuel to drive to weekly practice sessions, forcing Baalbaki to reduce the number of concerts from dozens a year to a handful.

This mirrors a wider decline in Lebanon’s cultural spaces including summer festivals, once seen as a beacon of the arts in the region.

Mona Kusta Semaan, a violinist who has been with the ensemble since it was re-founded in 2000 after its closure during Lebanon’s 1975-90 Civil War, has fond memories of performing with Spanish tenor Placido Domingo at the Roman ruins in Baalbeck in the early 2000s

Now, she said she choked up when she saw an orchestra on TV.

“I hope now that things get better, and Lebanon gets back on its feet, and they [foreign musicians] come back,” she said. “We became a family.”

A copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” one of the world’s most recognisable portraits, sold for 210,000 euros ($242,634) at a Paris auction.

The auction house, Artcurial, had estimated the copy, dating from around 1600 and looking strikingly similar to the original, would fetch 150,000 to 200,000 euros.

Leonardo’s original, which French King Francois I bought from the painter in 1518, can be found in Paris’ Louvre museum, drawing huge crowds to see its enigmatic smile.

In June, a European collector bought another 17th-century copy of the “Mona Lisa” for 2.9 million euros, a record for a reproduction of the work, at Christie’s in Paris.

In 2017, Christie’s New York sold Leonardo’s “Salvator Mundi” for $450 million.