Bejeweled Battle: Queen Elizabeth II’s Original Aquamarine Tiara

On November 4, 1957, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom arrived at the Odeon Theatre in Leicester Square for the Royal Film Performance of Les Girls, a musical directed by George Cukor and starring Gene Kelly, Mitzi Gaynor, and Kay Kendall. She was greeted by the famed director Peter Hall as she arrived at the theater.

Inside, she met with numerous celebrities in attendance, including the actress Jayne Mansfield.

For the performance, the Queen was ultra-glamorous in a white gown decorated with silver sequins and fur trim.

For the occasion, she also wore her newest tiara: a bandeau set with diamonds and aquamarines. (In the evening lighting, members of the press mistook the blue stones for emeralds.) The tiara had been made by Garrard to match a set of aquamarines given to the Queen by the people of Brazil as a coronation present four years earlier.

With the tiara, she wore the original Brazilian aquamarine earrings and necklace, including its enormous pendant.

Almost exactly ten years later, the Queen wore the aquamarine tiara and jewels again, this time during an official visit to Malta. She’s pictured here with Sir Maurice Henry Dorman, the seasoned diplomat who was serving as Malta’s governor general.

On the first night of the visit, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were the guests of honor at a banquet held at the Palace in Valletta.

For the dinner, the Queen was elegant in a bright blue evening gown with silver embroidery, plus the sash and star of the Order of the Garter and the Royal Family Orders of her grandfather and her father.

Here’s the same gown on display at Buckingham Palace in July 2016.

With the dress, she wore her diamond and aquamarine jewels. With the bandeau-style tiara, she wore the earrings and necklace (without its pendant). She also wore a diamond and aquamarine bracelet on her right wrist. Another gift from Brazil, the bracelet had been added to the married parure in August 1958, as had a matching brooch.

The Maltese banquet was among the Queen’s final appearances in the original setting of the aquamarine tiara. In 1971, it was redesigned and made into the much larger tiara that she wore for the next 50 years.