Eight Royal Tiaras for Eighty Years: Queen Silvia’s Spectacular Heirloom Sapphires

The Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure has been one of Queen Silvia’s most-worn jewelry suites for almost half a century. It makes frequent appearances at state banquets and Nobel Prize celebrations. In December 2007, she wore the set with a glamorous blue gown for the traditional King’s Dinner honoring the Nobel laureates on the day after the awards ceremony.

If the dress looks familiar, that’s because she’s worn it more than once. A notable previous outing took place in December 2005, when she paired it with the Cameo Tiara and its coordinating parure for the Nobel ceremony and banquet.

For the 2007 King’s Dinner, though, she kept the blue theme going by pairing the dress with the tiara, earrings, necklace, and brooch from the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure. The fabulous suite of jewels dates to the early nineteenth century. Empress Josephine of France gave the parure to her daughter-in-law, Princess Augusta of Bavaria, to celebrate the birth of Augusta’s son, Prince Auguste, in the winter of 1810-11. Augusta’s daughter, Princess Josephine of Leuchtenberg, brought them to Stockholm after she married the future King Oscar I of Sweden, and they’ve been in the Bernadotte collection ever since.

Queen Silvia wore the fabulous tiara from the set, which is unique because it lays completely flat when it’s removed from its frame. That allows the tiara to be worn in more closed or open settings, depending on the positioning of the frame.

She also wore the original necklace and brooch from the set for the King’s Dinner. The earrings are (sort of) newer additions to the suite. Queen Victoria of Sweden disposed of the original earrings—she never wore earrings herself—and a replacement pair had to be made by repurposing two hair pins from the set.

Queen Silvia has been a fan of the sapphires since the earliest years of her royal marriage. Above, she wears the set for a banquet during the state visit to the Netherlands in October 1976, just a few months after the royal wedding. (Her gown was bright yellow.)

And most recently, we saw her in the sapphires for this year’s King’s Dinner on December 11, 2023. It’s been so fun to look back at the way she’s worn the sapphire suite over the years!