Queen Mathilde’s Sparkling Musical Diamonds

On Saturday, Queen Mathilde attended the finals of the 2021 Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. She is pictured here French pianist Jonathan Fournel, who won this year’s contest with his performance of a Brahms concerto. The international competition, which features piano, violin, cello, and singing contests on a four-year cycle, was founded in 1937 by Queen Elisabeth, the great-grandmother of the present king, in memory of a friend, the musician Eugène Ysaÿe. The top prize in the competition has been named the Queen Mathilde Prize since 2015, when she took over as the competition’s patron following the death of Queen Fabiola.

Mathilde, pictured here with a flower-bedecked bust of Queen Elisabeth, wore a bright red dress with a dramatic cape (and a matching mask) for the event. The dress matched her bouquet of roses perfectly.

She also accessorized with a pair of diamond fringe earrings. The earrings feature a complicated modern diamond stud with a ribbon motif, from which three diamond fringes are suspended. Larger diamond drops are affixed to the ends of each fringe piece.

Mathilde is a major fan of the diamond fringe statement earring. We’ve seen this pair on her before. Above, she wears the earrings in Oslo in May 2017, during the celebrations of the 80th birthdays of King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway.

Here’s one more view of Mathilde wearing the earrings this weekend. So happy to see the diamonds coming out of the vaults again!