Os joalheiros reais do liberalismo e as estrelas de diamantes da coroa portuguesa

Commissioned by Queen Maria Pia (1847-1911) between 1864 and 1866, the star parure is one of the most famous pieces of jewellery of the Portuguese crown. The original commission did not include a tiara, which has led to misinterpretation by some historians, mainly because the most famous piece of jewellery in the parure is currently a tiara. To clarify this apparent contradiction, this article traces the path of this set, which has known different arrangements for decades. Equally contradictory is the notoriety enjoyed by its author, Estêvão de Sousa, although almost nothing is known about his history. In the search for answers to the history of the parure and its creator, this article uncovers a commercial and familial network that is paradigmatic of the commercial practices of liberalism, in which hereditary privilege and technical-artistic mastery were the variables of an equation in which the royal house's choices were decisive.