The Grand Duchess of Luxembourg’s Sparkling Chaumet Choker Tiara

Today in Luxembourg, Princess Alexandra celebrates her birthday. In her honor, let’s take a closer look at one of her very favorite jewels from the family collection: the convertible diamond tiara made by Chaumet.

The provenance of the unusual tiara, which has a diamond lattice design, has been pieced together over the years. The writers at Luxarazzi consulted with Chaumet about the piece, learning that it was a unique design created by the French jewelry firm. Indeed, a model of a similar tiara (called a “nickel”) exists today in the Chaumet archives, though it’s not an exact match for the Luxembourgish jewel. (You can spot it clearly in a photograph in Diana Scarisbrick’s Tiara.) Chaumet also shared that the grand ducal family acquired their tiara via a public auction, though when and where that sale took place has not, to my knowledge, ever been fully determined.

It’s certain, however, that the tiara had arrived in the Luxembourgish vaults by the early 1980s. In the first years of that decade, it was worn by Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte and by both Princess Margaretha and Hereditary Grand Duchess Maria Teresa. While Josephine-Charlotte preferred to wear the tiara in its complete setting, with a series of round pearl toppers, Margaretha wore the tiara for her pre-wedding gala in 1982 in its all-diamond setting sans pearls. Interestingly, the original tiara was apparently topped with sapphires, not pearls, though it’s not clear whether those sapphires were still part of the tiara when the family purchased it at auction. (I don’t believe it’s ever been worn with sapphires by any of the ladies of the grand ducal family in public.)

In the photograph above, taken in Oslo in the spring of 1983, Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte wears the pearl setting of the tiara for a concert celebrating the 80th birthday of her uncle, King Olav V of Norway. You’ll also spot other familiar royal faces among the group, including Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (wearing the Greville Tiara), Queen Sonja of Norway (wearing the Norwegian Emeralds), and Princess Lilian of Sweden (wearing the Connaught Diamond Tiara).

Since her husband’s accession in 2000, the primary wearer of the tiara has been Grand Duchess Maria Teresa. She wore it frequently for gala events in the years afterward, especially the many foreign celebrations that were packed into the first years of that decade. Above, she wears the tiara with its pearl toppers in Copenhagen during the wedding celebrations for Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark in May 2004.

Maria Teresa almost always wears the tiara with its pearl toppers, just as her mother-in-law did before her. She also likes to pair the tiara with other pearl jewelry from the family collection, including their spectacular pearl drop earrings and Princess Ingeborg’s Pearl Fleur-de-Lis Brooch. She wears all of those pieces, plus a necklace with a pearl pendant, above in a photograph taken during the Nobel Prize celebrations in Stockholm in December 2011.

On occasion, Maria Teresa has also worn the jewel in its other major setting: as a choker necklace. The lattice portion is removed from the tiara frame, and both the pearl and diamond toppers are removed as well, when it’s worn in this necklace setting. Here, at a state banquet in Stockholm in 2008, Maria Teresa wears the choker with another diamond riviere necklace and several other important jewels, including the Belgian Scroll Tiara.

Perhaps most memorable was Maria Teresa’s appearance in the complete pearl setting of the tiara at the gala dinner held on the night before the wedding of her eldest son, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume of Luxembourg, and Countess Stephanie de Lannoy in October 2012.

In the years since that royal wedding, Maria Teresa has also shared the tiara with other members of the family. Hereditary Grand Duchess Stephanie paired the all-diamond setting with sapphires (including the family’s convertible sapphire and diamond necklace) for a state banquet during the Dutch state visit in May 2018.

But the most enthusiastic wearer of the tiara in recent years has been, without a doubt, Maria Teresa’s daughter, Princess Alexandra. She made her debut in the all-diamond version of the tiara at the National Day gala in June 2016.

A year later, in 2017, she wore the full pearl setting of the tiara for a state banquet at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo when she accompanied her father on a state visit to Japan.

She also wore the all-diamond setting for the New Year gala at the Grand Ducal Palace in January 2020.

But her most important appearance in the tiara came in April 2023, when she chose it as her bridal diadem. She wore the all-diamond setting with a tulle veil to marry Nicolas Bagory in a religious wedding ceremony in the south of France.

Here’s another look at Alexandra wearing the tiara on her wedding day. She’s worn numerous other tiaras from the family collection over the years, but the choice of this tiara for her wedding day seems to cement it as her very favorite piece from the grand ducal vaults.