Over the next few weeks, as royals gather for the gala celebrations of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, we’re going to be revisiting some of the most sparkling tiaras in the Danish royal family’s collections. Today, on Queen Anne-Marie’s birthday, we begin with her first major Danish royal jewel, the Antique Corsage Tiara.
Queen Ingrid of Denmark, one of the patron saints of European royal jewelry, was the mother of three daughters: Margrethe, Benedikte, and Anne-Marie. She and her husband, King Frederik IX, provided each of them with a sparkling tiara as an 18th birthday gift. The eldest, Margrethe, received the Alexandrine Diamond Drop Tiara. The second, Benedikte, received a new tiara made from a brooch that also belonged to Queen Alexandrine.
To provide a tiara for the third daughter, Anne-Marie, Ingrid turned to her own jewelry box. She had inherited a suite of diamond and pearl jewels from her grandmother, Queen Victoria of Sweden, that included a pair of earrings, a small brooch, and a large corsage ornament.
In this photograph, Ingrid wears the diamond and pearl corsage ornament pinned to the neckline of an evening gown. The occasion was a dinner at the Danish Embassy in London during the May 1951 state visit to Britain. She also wore the Khedive of Egypt Tiara, a diamond rivière necklace, antique diamond earrings, and a gold cuff bracelet. (Behind her, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother wears the original setting of the Greville Tiara, as well as the Greville Festoon Necklace.)
Ahead of Princess Anne-Marie’s 18th birthday in August 1964, Queen Ingrid decided to transform the corsage ornament into a tiara. The piece was reconfigured into this diamond and pearl floral tiara, which can be worn with or without an additional pearl topper at the highest point of the jewel. Ingrid also gave Anne-Marie the coordinating earrings and brooch, which now made up a small parure.
Princess Anne-Marie turned 18 on August 30, 1964, but she was already on her way to a new royal life in another country. She had accepted a marriage proposal from King Constantine II of Greece, and the royal engagement had been made public that July. On September 10, 1964, two weeks after her 18th birthday, a farewell dinner was held for the princess at Fredensborg Castle ahead of her journey to Athens for her wedding. The occasion was also her debut of the new Antique Corsage Tiara—the first and last time she would wear the tiara as a Danish princess.
As the new Queen of Greece, Anne-Marie had access to a whole range of new royal jewels, including multiple significant tiaras. On occasion, though, she still wore the Antique Corsage Tiara and its coordinating jewels. Here, she wears the tiara and earrings (with Queen Alexandrine’s diamond necklace and her diamond cross pendant) for an audience with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1966.
She also wore the earrings that April during the wedding celebrations of a German/Greek royal cousin, Prince Karl of Hesse, in The Hague.
But Anne-Marie has mostly reserved the tiara for the use of the next generation of the family. Both of her daughters and all of her daughters-in-law have worn the jewel. Here, Princess Theodora, Anne-Marie’s younger daughter, wears the tiara and the coordinating brooch in Denmark during Queen Margrethe’s Ruby Jubilee in January 2012. She also wears a pair of diamond floral and pearl drop earrings borrowed from her mother, plus a very modern diamond and pearl necklace.
All three of Anne-Marie’s daughters-in-law have worn the tiara as a bridal diadem. The first was Marie-Chantal Miller, who wore the tiara with her Valentino gown when she married Crown Prince Pavlos in 1995.
In August 2010, Tatiana Blatnik wore the tiara for her wedding to Anne-Marie’s second son, Prince Nikolaos. The wedding took place on the island of Spetses.
And most recently, in October 2021, Nina Flohr wore the tiara for her wedding to Prince Philippos, Anne-Marie’s youngest son.
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