The Russian Pink Topaz Suite

I’m already anticipating your first question: if the set is called the “Russian” suite, why is it in the royal vaults in Sweden? Even though the set is in Bernadotte hands today, its history begins in early nineteenth-century imperial Russia. In 1804, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, one of the daughters of Tsar Paul I of Russia, married Carl Friedrich, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Maria Pavlovna was a granddaughter of Catherine the Great. She was also the sister of various European rulers and consorts, including Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, Queen Catherine of Württemberg, and Queen Anna of the Netherlands.

When Maria Pavlovna gave birth to her daughter, Princess Augusta, her mother gave her the topaz suite to mark the occasion. The large pink topazes are surrounded with glittering diamonds, and the set consists of four pieces: a large, impressive necklace, a smaller brooch, and a larger, multi-stone brooch with a floral motif. Two of the pendants from the larger brooch can also be detached and worn as earrings. The set is often called a “demi-parure” because it lacks a tiara.

Grand Duke Carl Friedrich and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna had three surviving children: Princess Marie, Princess Augusta, and Prince Karl. Augusta, the middle child, was the one who inherited her mother’s pink topazes. She married Prince Wilhelm of Prussia in 1829. The marriage was not a smashing success, but their union did manage to produce two children: Friedrich, who married Princess Vicky (daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), and Louise, who wed Grand Duke Friedrich of Baden in 1856. Wilhelm and Augusta became King and Queen of Prussia in 1861, and ten years later, they were upgraded to imperial titles, becoming Kaiser Wilhelm I and Kaiserin Augusta. The empress inherited her mother’s Romanov topazes in 1859.

Kaiserin Augusta kept the topazes in her personal collection for decades until her death in 1890. Her decision to bequeath the pink topazes to her daughter, Grand Duchess Louise of Baden, ultimately set the gemstones on a direct path to Stockholm. In 1881, Louise’s daughter, Princess Victoria of Baden, married Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden. Victoria became Sweden’s queen consort in 1907.

Although there are lots of portraits of Queen Victoria wearing items from the Bernadotte collection, I’ve never seen a photograph of her in the topazes. But there may be a reason for that. Grand Duchess Louise didn’t die until 1923, so Victoria didn’t inherit the set until she was sixty. By that time, Victoria had largely withdrawn from court life and was spending much of her time in Italy.

But although she did not make significant use of her mother’s topazes, Victoria did an important thing that secured their future in Sweden. On her death, she bequeathed them to a jewelry foundation, which means they will stay in Swedish hands. Both Queens of Sweden who have followed Victoria—Queen Louise and Queen Silvia—have made major use of the topazes, often wearing them with the enormous Braganza Tiara or the more delicate Connaught Diamond Tiara. Queen Silvia even selected the set for one of her first official portraits in 1976.

Princess Sibylla, mother of the King Carl XVI Gustaf, also wore the topazes, as did the King’s sister, Princess Christina. above, Christina wears the topazes with the Four Button Tiara at the Nobel Prize banquet in December 1970.

Queen Silvia has been the primary wearer of the topazes for almost 50 years. She’s even worn the larger brooch from the set as a headpiece. Silvia has chosen the topazes for a number of important occasions since, including the 2010 wedding of her eldest daughter, Crown Princess Victoria, nearly two centuries after they were made.