Our Sparkling Spotlight on the royal jewels of the Duchess of Gloucester continues today with a look at a pair of gorgeous Art Deco brooches from her collection: her diamond and rock crystal circle brooches.
The Duchess wears these brooches often for a range of engagements and occasions. Today, we’re going to focus on one specific appearance: a concert at Laeken Castle, one of the residences of the Belgian royal family, near Brussels on November 16, 2010. Above, Birgitte chats with King Albert II of Belgium during the event.
Several other royals were also present for the concert, including Queen Paola of Belgium (with Princess Mathilde, Princess Astrid, and Princess Claire), Queen Silvia of Sweden, and Infanta Cristina of Spain. Other prominent attendees included President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia and Bernadette Chirac, the former First Lady of France.
For the concert, Birgitte wore classic diamond and pearl drop earrings with a single-stranded pearl necklace. She also pinned a favorite pair of circle brooches to her blue dress. These brooches are made of diamonds and rock crystal. They look blue here, because they’re picking up the color of the fabric, but the rock crystal sections of the circles are translucent.
This kind of brooch design was popular during the Art Deco era of the 1920s. (The Queen Mother also had a rock crystal brooch made in the same era.) The brooch above isn’t Birgitte’s, but it’s one with a similar design that was offered for sale by Bentley & Skinner. It dates to 1925, and it also features a rock crystal circle embellished with diamond accents set in platinum. Hopefully this close-up view of a similar piece will give you a better idea of the way Birgitte’s twinned brooches are constructed.
The Duchess finished off the look with a very modern bangle-style watch made of yellow gold.
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