The Norwegian Amethyst Parure Tiara

As we roll into February, it’s time to focus on the month’s gorgeous birthstone: the amethyst. Today, we’re looking at the tiara and jewels from the Norwegian Amethyst Parure.

The amethyst and diamond parure consists of several pieces: a convertible necklace/tiara, a pair of earrings with removable drops, a ring, two bracelets that can be combined and worn together as a second necklace, and a brooch that can also be attached as a part of the bracelet-necklace.

The provenance of the set has never been shared by the Norwegian royal family. While some have speculated that it may have been was a gift to Queen Sonja from her husband, King Harald V of Norway, others disagree. The jewelry historian Trond Noren Isaksen posits in his book, Ingrid Alexandras Arv, that the amethyst set was acquired from Garrard in the 1990s as a replacement for another jewel, a pink tourmaline tiara that had been purchased from the descendants of Countess Estelle Bernadotte. Isaksen writes that the tourmaline tiara, like Queen Maud’s Pearl Tiara, was stolen in the raid on Garrard’s London headquarters in February 1995.

Queen Sonja wore the entire set at the gala held the night before the wedding of her son, Crown Prince Haakon, in 2001. She pinned the brooch to the center of her gown’s neckline, and she stacked both bracelets on her right arm.

For years, the queen was the primary wearer of this piece, sporting it as both a necklace and a tiara. In recent years, however, she appears to have either given or permanently loaned the parure to her daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Mette-Marit. There’s some speculation that it might have a gift in celebration of the birth of Mette-Marit’s daughter and the heir to the throne, Princess Ingrid Alexandra. Above, Mette-Marit makes an early appearance in the amethysts during the Danish royal wedding festivities in May 2004.

The crown princess generally wears the piece as a tiara, not as a necklace. Above, she wears the tiara for an important state visit to London in October 2005. (The British and Norwegian royals are close cousins; King Harald’s father, Olav, was the son of a British princess, and he was born on the Sandringham estate.) Mette-Marit selected the amethyst tiara for the grand state banquet at Buckingham Palace.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, pictured here with Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, also wore the tiara during Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s 70th birthday celebrations in the spring of 2010.

But Mette-Marit’s highest-profile outing in the amethysts to date was probably the grand royal wedding of Princess Madeleine of Sweden in June 2013.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit is the most frequent wearer of the amethyst set, but other Norwegian royals also have access to the jewels. Princess Märtha Louise donned the amethyst parure, including the tiara and the bracelet-necklace, at the 2010 wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden. While Mette-Marit features sleek hairstyles, Märtha Louise backed this tall necklace tiara with an impressive hairstyle, providing the amethysts with a substantial brunette backdrop. For me, this was probably the most successful outing of the set to date.

Today, Crown Princess Mette-Marit continues to be the primary wearer of the amethyst set. She’s pictured above wearing the jewels in February 2024 for a state banquet in Oslo in honor of the President of Tanzania.

But there’s another amethyst-wearer waiting in the wings. During her 18th birthday celebrations in June 2022, Princess Ingrid Alexandra wore the brooch from the suite pinned to her order sash. Could she be the next Norwegian royal lady to give the tiara a try, too?