All week, we’ve been showcasing tiaras and jewels worn by Queen Máxima during visits to Sweden, ahead of next week’s glittering state visit to Stockholm. Today, though, we’re flipping the script, and looking at the jewels worn by Máxima for the Swedish visit to the Netherlands in 2014.
In April 2014, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden headed to Amsterdam for an official visit hosted by King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. On the first night of the visit, a grand banquet was held at the Royal Palace in honor of the Swedish royal couple.
All of the royal ladies in attendance wore gala jewels and evening gowns for the dinner. Máxima chose a Grecian-inspired gown in a deep shade of yellow for the banquet, accessorized with diamonds and citrines, while Queen Silvia wore red with diamonds (including the Connaught Diamond Tiara) and Princess Beatrix wore light purple with diamonds and pearls (including Queen Emma’s Diamond Tiara). All three also wore orders and decorations, including the Order of the Polar Star (for Máxima), the Order of the Netherlands Lion (for Silvia), and the Order of the Seraphim (for Beatrix).
Máxima sparkled mightily at the banquet in the Dutch Diamond Bandeau, a sleek tiara made in the 1930s by converting a nineteenth-century diamond necklace that had belonged to Queen Emma. The tiara is deceptively simple, made with a careful curving base so that it sits beautifully in the wearer’s hair. Some of the diamonds in the piece are absolutely enormous—the size of gumballs!
Along with the bandeau, Máxima wore Queen Wilhelmina’s Diamond Earrings, a pair given to the then-princess by her father, King Willem III, as a ninth (!) birthday present in 1889. But perhaps the most significant jewel from the ensemble was her brooch, used to secure her order sash. This is Queen Emma’s Sapphire Bow Brooch, part of a gorgeous married nineteenth-century parure of diamond and sapphire jewels. The brooch usually has an enormous oval-shaped sapphire set in the center of the bow, but for this occasion, Máxima replaced it with a gorgeous diamond and citrine cluster.
She echoed the diamond and citrine theme with her bracelets for the evening. On her left wrist (not seen here) she wore a diamond bracelet, and on her right wrist, she wore her lovely modern bracelet featuring diamonds and various shades of citrines.
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