Rubies, Pearls, and Enamel for Queen Mathilde at Europalia

King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of the Belgians toured the Europalia Art Festival in Brussels on Wednesday. The festival, which takes place every two years, is devoted to projects that bring together pieces from different media—visual arts, performing arts, music, literature—to promote an exchange of ideas.

This year’s festival is dedicated to works by artists from the nation of Georgia. The program includes the opening exhibition at Bozar, The Avant-Garde in Georgia (1900-1936), which was toured by the royal couple this week. Works by numerous artists are displayed, including Elene Akhvlediani, Irakli Gamrekeli, Gigo Gabashvili, Nutsa Ghoghoberidze, Lado Gudiashvili, David Kakabadze, Shalva Kikodze, Kote Mikaberidze, Petre Otskheli, Niko Pirosmanashvili (Pirosmani), Alexander von Salzmann, and Ilia and Kirille Zdanevich.

For the exhibition opening, Queen Mathilde wore a silver and burgundy dress with a modern floral pattern, made by Natan. (There’s a lot of Natan going around lately, isn’t there?) She added burgundy shoes and a matching bag to the ensemble.

With the outfit, she also wore a coordinating pair of earrings that she’s had in her jewelry box for several years.

The jewels come from Percossi Papi, an Italian jewelry firm. These particular earrings are made of yellow gold and set with rubies and tiny pearls with enamel accents.

Mathilde has been wearing the earrings for a few years, always with outfits that feature dark red as a prominent color. She wears them here with a wine-colored dress at the United Nations in New York in February 2020.

And here, she pairs the earrings with the same dress for a visit to a Brussels museum in November 2022.

My favorite outing for the earrings so far, however, was the appearance at the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Oman back in February 2022. The earrings stood out beautifully against Mathilde’s dark red headscarf and matching mask.