A Romanov Diamond Fringe Tiara That Made Its Way to Copenhagen

On this date, more than a century ago, a future King and Queen of Denmark were married in a French villa during a heavy downpour of rain. Today, let’s look back at the wedding of King Christian X and Queen Alexandrine–and one of the heirloom Romanov tiaras she inherited.

The bride at today’s royal wedding, Duchess Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was the eldest of three children born to Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia. Alexandrine was born into an extremely well-connected royal family. Her paternal grandfather, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II, was a first cousin of both Emperor Friedrich III of Prussia and Tsar Alexander II of Russia. He was also a close friend of another contemporary, King Christian IX of Denmark. Her mother, born into the House of Romanov, was a granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and a niece of Tsar Alexander II. She also descended from the royal families of Prussia, Baden, and Sweden.

In the spring of 1897, the royal court in Schwerin officially announced that Duchess Alexandrine, 17, was engaged to be married to 26-year-old Prince Christian of Denmark. Papers reported that the engagement was a love match, blossoming from a courtship that took place during holidays in the south of France. Christian was the eldest son of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Lovisa of Denmark, and he was expected one day to inherit the Danish throne. Alexandrine was an ideal royal bride, speaking five languages and delighting in the outdoor sports so beloved by the Danish royals. The Graphic called her “the life and soul of her home.” The marriage date was planned for September 1897–but then, sadly, fate intervened.

Alexandrine’s father, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz, had never enjoyed good health. The family spent increasing amounts of time living in their villa in Cannes because doctors believed the climate would be good for the Grand Duke’s asthma. But in April 1897, just days after Alexandrine’s engagement was announced, he died suddenly in the gardens of the villa. Christian was by Alexandrine’s side as the family buried her father in Schwerin, but the couple’s wedding was postponed until the family was out of mourning.

Because the family was still mourning the loss of Alexandrine’s father, the couple’s eventual royal wedding was far quieter and less grand than most nuptials of a future monarch and consort. Christian and Alexandrine were married on April 26, 1898, not in Schwerin or in Copenhagen but in Cannes, where her mother had essentially become a permanent resident. The weather did not cooperate. Rain fell “incessantly” during the day. Nevertheless, a civil ceremony was performed in the morning at the family’s home, Villa Wenden, by the town’s mayor. The Standard wrote that “many baskets of flowers and bouquets of great beauty” had been dispatched by various royal relatives, turning the villa into an indoor garden as buckets of rain fell outside. An uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, served as one of Christian’s witnesses, while Alexandrine’s were her elegant Romanov grandfather, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich of Russia, and her German uncle, Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

That afternoon, the couple were married in a religious ceremony at a protestant church in Cannes. The Telegraph described the ceremony as “a beautiful sight, for seldom has a more brilliant gathering assembled at a wedding so far from the homes of the bride and bridegroom,” in a church “prettily but not elaborately decorated with palm leaves and roses.” A choir sang as Alexandrine, escorted by her brother, walked down the aisle in a white satin dress that was “very simple, but extremely pretty.” Instead of a tiara, she secured her veil with a spray of orange blossoms, and a diamond brooch secured more orange blossoms at her waist.

Christian stood at the end of the aisle in his naval uniform, accompanied by his brother, Prince Carl of Denmark, who would later become King Haakon VII of Norway. Alexandrine was supported by eight bridesmaids. Most of them were royal relatives: her sister, Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; her cousin, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia; Christian’s sister, Princess Thyra of Denmark; and three of Christian’s cousins, Princesses Marie Louise, Alexandra, and Olga of Cumberland. (Several years later, Princess Alexandra of Cumberland would end up marrying Alexandrine’s brother, Friedrich Franz.) There were also a pair of friends included in the bridesmaid roster. Princess Mary Ouroussoff–who was, I believe, a daughter of the Russian ambassador to France–holidayed in a nearby villa. The other, identified as “Mademoiselle de Scalon,” seems to have been a relative of Captain Scalon, aide-de-camp to one of the Russian grand dukes.

Because so many royals spent regular vacations on the French Riviera, many took the opportunity to come to the wedding and sneak in a little extra holiday time. Alexandrine’s mother and siblings were there, as well as several of her paternal uncles and aunts, plus her grandfather’s widow, Grand Duchess Marie. Several members of the Romanov family were present as well, including Alexandrine’s grandfather, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich. Several of her Russian uncles were there, too, including Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and his wife, Grand Duchess Xenia, and Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich and his morganatic wife, the Countess de Torby. Alexandrine’s paternal aunt and maternal cousin-in-law, Grand Duchess Vladimir, who was born Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was there, too. So were Duke Constantine Petrovich of Oldenburg and the Duke and Duchess of Leuchtenberg.

Christian’s family was represented at the wedding by his parents, Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Lovisa of Denmark. Also in attendance were several of his siblings, including Prince Carl (but not his wife, Princess Maud, who was traveling with her mother, the Princess of Wales), Princess Thyra, and Prince Harald. His uncle and aunt, the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, were also present for the ceremony. Even more extended family members were present, too. Crown Prince Ferdinand and Crown Princess Marie of Romania were there, as was Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden. The Count and Countess of Caserta, pretenders to the throne of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and neighbors in Cannes, were also there with their daughters. Queen Victoria had been enjoying the sunny weather nearby during her own recent holidays, during which she had lunch with the engaged couple, but she had returned to Britain before the wedding took place.

After the wedding festivities had ended, Prince Christian and Princess Alexandrine headed out on a honeymoon trip that took them through Genoa, Milan, and Naples. Then they traveled to Schwerin, where the people threw a lavish five-day celebration in their honor. And then it was on to Copenhagen, to settle down together into their new married life. Eight years after their wedding, Christian’s grandfather died, and his father became King Frederik VIII of Denmark. Now Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark, Christian and Alexandrine found themselves in an elevated role within the family–and then, six years later, they unexpectedly became King and Queen when King Frederik suddenly died.

Though Alexandrine had no formal or political role, as Queen of Denmark she was expected to act as a gracious, diplomatic gala hostess. That job required significant royal jewelry. There were some parures available to Alexandrine in Denmark’s crown jewel collection, but she wasn’t particularly interested in those pieces. Instead, she focused on jewels that had been given to her personally, including a diamond fringe tiara with Russian roots.

For years, every Romanov grand duchess who married (with the approval of the imperial family, of course) received a diamond fringe tiara as a wedding gift from the emperor. The tiaras, shaped like traditional Russian kokoshniks, formed a glittering halo around the wearer’s head. When Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna married the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1879, she received a fringe tiara from her uncle, Emperor Alexander II.

Anastasia wears the jewel in the gala photograph above, taken around the time of her marriage. The tiara is generally thought to have been made by Bolin, the jewelry firm that produced numerous pieces of jewelry for the imperial family in the nineteenth century, though others have argued that it might have been produced by Friedrich Köchli, another jeweler working in St. Petersburg at the time.

Today, the tiara is on display at the Amalienborg Museum in Copenhagen. The photograph above shows the interesting details of the piece. The museum’s website offers this description of the jewel: “Magnificent tiara in the kokoshnik style with 39 sparkling fringes, which become wider towards the center. Each fringe consists of eight diamonds with a tiny one on top, and between them are small fringes of three diamonds each. The tiara boasts no less than 465 stones.”

You’ll note that there are some visible differences between the fringe tiara as it is displayed in the museum and as it was worn by Grand Duchess Anastasia in the photograph above. Most agree that the tiaras are probably one and the same, but it’s clear to me that some renovation of the jewel must have taken place between the time that Anastasia received it and the moment when she passed it on to her elder daughter, Queen Alexandrine. I’ve often wondered if the smaller spikes were partially removed, perhaps to use the diamonds in other pieces of jewelry, leaving behind just the tiny truncated sections that exist on the tiara today.

Here’s a look at Alexandrine wearing the tiara with her sapphire and diamond corsage ornament in a photographic portrait taken in the 1930s. Grand Duchess Anastasia died in 1922. She either gave the tiara to Alexandrine at some point before her death or bequeathed it to her afterward. Either way, the jewel was in Danish royal hands by 1930, and Alexandrine wore it often for gala events until the end of her husband’s reign in 1947.

Queen Alexandrine was not a jewelry lover by any stretch of the imagination, but she knew that her role as Queen required her to wear grand jewelry on certain occasions. Her granddaughter, Queen Margrethe II, would later recall, “She was a very modest, really shy person. but for great occasions she would put on the jewelry that you would expect her to. But I remember that she did not wear a lot of jewelry.”

Christian and Alexandrine had two sons, King Frederik IX and Hereditary Prince Knud. In her will, Alexandrine divided her jewelry between them. Some pieces were bequeathed to Frederik and later worn by his wife and daughters, while others went to Knud and his family. The fringe tiara was one of the pieces that was earmarked for the younger son to inherit. Above, Knud’s wife, Hereditary Princess Caroline-Mathilde, wears the tiara for a gala event in the 1960s.

Today, the tiara remains with Knud’s branch of the Danish family tree. It belongs to Knud and Caroline-Mathilde’s son, Count Ingolf of Rosenborg, and it is often worn by his wife, Countess Sussie, for family celebrations. Above, Sussie wears the tiara in April 2010 during Queen Margrethe II’s 70th birthday celebrations. Generously, Ingolf and Sussie have also decided to put the tiara on public display when they’re not using it. It can be found in the Fabergé Chamber at the Amalienborg Museum in Copenhagen–not because it was made by Fabergé (it wasn’t!) but because it’s part of the legacy of the Danish royal family’s Romanov roots in imperial Russia.