For a royal house that has reigned over a country for more than a century, the Belgian royal family has a surprisingly small number of tiaras in their vaults. There are several reasons for this—pieces have been sold, inherited by women who married into other families, etc.—but the family has managed to hang on to one of their sparkliest heirloom pieces: the Nine Provinces Tiara, which is worn by the nation’s queen.
The tiara, which first belonged to Princess Astrid of Sweden, is approaching its ninetieth birthday. When Astrid married the future King Leopold III of Belgium, the sparkler was among her wedding presents. It was made in 1926 by Van Bever, a Belgian jeweler, and given to Astrid on behalf of the Belgian people.
The original tiara was a meander bandeau topped by a series of large, round diamonds (which, in some lights, appear to have a slight yellow cast) on spikes. It was able to be worn with or without the top pieces from the start.
But Astrid innovated, adding a series of interlocking diamond arches over the top of the large diamonds, giving the entire tiara a far more solid appearance. Today, it is generally worn as a complete piece, although Queen Paola has worn the meander base of the tiara alone as a choker necklace. Additionally, the piece can be worn with the arches but without the diamond spikes, making it one of the most versatile royal tiaras in Belgian hands.
After Astrid’s death in 1935, her husband, King Leopold III, inherited the tiara. His second wife, Princess Lilian, never wore the complete piece, but she did wear various components of the tiara, including using the meander section as a bandeau tiara and as a bracelet.
But the complete, full tiara has still only been worn by Belgian queens. When Fabiola de Mora y Aragón married Leopold and Astrid’s son, King Baudouin, in 1960, she became the next eligible wearer of the piece. She even chose to wear it on her wedding day, paying a little bejeweled tribute to her late mother-in-law.
Fabiola wore the tiara in various forms throughout her reign, especially for the grandest state occasions. One particularly prominent outing took place in May 1963, when she wore the tiara for a performance at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden during the Belgian royal state visit to Britain.
She also wore the tiara for a visit to the Vatican in June 1961. She exercised the privilege du blanc—the right to wear white, afforded to the spouses of some Catholic sovereigns—for the audience with Pope John XXIII.
When King Baudouin died unexpectedly in 1993, Queen Fabiola passed the tiara to the new queen consort, Paola. She wore it until 2013, when her husband, King Albert II, abdicated in favor of their elder son, King Philippe.
During her time as Queen of the Belgians, Paola mainly alternated the Nine Provinces Tiara with the Art Deco Bandeau that she received as a gift from her father-in-law. On at least one occasion—the Danish royal wedding in 2004—she wore the bandeau base of the Nine Provinces Tiara as a choker necklace.
She also wore it often for high-profile diplomatic occasions, including glittering banquets held during state visits, like this appearance during the Norwegian state visit to Belgium in May 2003.
She also wore the tiara in June 2006 during a state visit from Queen Beatrix and other members of the Dutch royal family.
Today, the tiara is worn by Queen Mathilde, the first Belgian-born queen of the country. She posed in the tiara for her first official portrait as consort, although she chose to wear only the meander bandeau rather than the full version of the tiara on that occasion.
She also wore the bandeau setting for one of the first state visits of their reign, a meeting with the President and First Lady of China in March 2014.
Mathilde debuted the full tiara in Copenhagen during the 75th birthday celebrations for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in April 2015.
Queen Mathilde tends to wear the bandeau more often than the full tiara. She wore the sleek bandeau setting in June 2015 for the wedding of Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia of Sweden in Stockholm.
She also wears the bandeau setting here, for a gala banquet at Laeken in honor of King Abdullah II and Queen Rania of Jordan in 2016.
However, Mathilde often wears the complete tiara for particularly glittering diplomatic occasions, like the state banquet held during the Belgian state visit to Denmark in 2017.
The gala banquet held at Laeken during the state visit from King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands also gave Mathilde another opportunity to wear the full tiara.
Mathilde will continue to have sole use of the tiara until the day that her elder daughter, Elisabeth, becomes queen. Elisabeth will be the first ever queen regnant in Belgium should the monarchy survive to her accession.
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