Astonishing Antique Diamond Tiaras for the Spanish and Dutch Royals in Amsterdam

It’s time for our second (!) royal-royal state banquet of the week, everybody! The King and Queen of Spain are visiting their Dutch counterparts, and we were treated to five remarkable royal tiaras during tonight’s state banquet in Amsterdam.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain arrived in the Netherlands for a state visit with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima on Wednesday. The first day of the visit culminated with a traditional state banquet at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, complete with decorations, white tie, gala gowns, and plenty of tiaras.

We’ll start our tour of the royal jewels with the honored guest, Queen Letizia. She wore a voluminous ball gown in a gorgeous shade of cobalt blue, made by the Spanish fashion brand The 2nd Skin Co. The dress contrasted beautifully with the golden yellow sash of her new Dutch royal decoration, the Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau.

Letizia added major diamonds and pearls to her ensemble as well. She wore the grand diamond and pearl loop tiara that belonged to King Felipe’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Maria Cristina of Spain. Maria Cristina was a Habsburg archduchess, and handily, she was also a direct descendant of William IV, Prince of Orange, who was the ruler of the predecessor of the present Dutch nation. A nice little tiara nod!

The tiara was passed down from Queen Maria Cristina to her son, King Alfonso XIII. He gave it to his daughter-in-law, the Countess of Barcelona, as a wedding present in 1935. The tiara’s chain of inheritance since then is a little blurry, but it’s stayed with the Spanish royals, and Queen Letizia has been wearing it since 2018.

With the tiara, Queen Letizia wore jewels from the joyas de pasar collection. The cache of jewels belonged to King Alfonso XIII’s wife, Queen Ena, who designated them to pass directly from monarch to monarch. For the banquet, Queen Letizia wore Ena’s gorgeous diamond earrings. She also used the beautiful gray pearl brooch from the collection to secure her order sash. The order features a luminous gray pearl set in a double cluster of diamonds, with a diamond and pear-shaped gray pearl pendant. As always–lately, anyway–she finished off the look with her Coreterno ring, worn on the index finger of her left hand.

Queen Maxima pulled out all the stops to host her Spanish royal guests for the banquet. She dressed in a gorgeous, flowing dove-gray evening gown from one of her favorite couturiers, Jan Taminiau. The dress coordinated nicely with the blue and white sash of her Spanish decoration, the Order of Charles III.

But the star of the show, without question, was Maxima’s tiara. For just the second time, Maxima wore the grand Stuart Tiara with the pear-shaped Stuart Diamond affixed to the diadem. The 39.75-carat diamond was acquired by King William III and Queen Mary of England in the seventeenth century. When they died with no descendants, the diamond was returned to William’s home country, the Netherlands, along with the rest of his property. It’s been with the Dutch royals ever since.

Fittingly, the only other occasion when Maxima wore the Stuart Diamond in public took place in Britain. She wore it for a state banquet at Buckingham Palace during the Dutch state visit to Britain in October 2018.

Indeed, Maxima repeated several other pieces from that 2018 banquet for this evening’s dinner in Amsterdam. She wore the large diamond stomacher from the Stuart Parure pinned at the neckline of her gown. She also wore the large nineteenth-century diamond drop earrings that belonged to Queen Wilhelmina, as well as one of the family’s antique diamond bracelets. You’ll spot her own diamond wedding bracelet on her left wrist, too.

One of the most anticipated moments of this state banquet was an appearance by the Princess of Orange. This is Amalia’s first state banquet, though not her first tiara event. (We covered several recent ones in an article last week.) With an elegant navy blue gown and sheer cape, she wore the gold and yellow sash of her new Spanish decoration, the Order of Isabella the Catholic.

She added even more color to her ensemble with diamond and ruby jewelry from the family vaults, wearing the tiara and necklace from the Ruby Peacock Parure and ruby and diamond cluster earrings from the Mellerio Ruby Parure. This is Amalia’s third public appearance in the tiara, so it’s definitely a favorite. It’s the first time we’ve seen her in the necklace, and it’s a bit of a shame that it was partly hidden by the cape. Amalia also wore one of the family’s gorgeous diamond and ruby bracelets on her right wrist, plus a slender ring on her right hand.

Princess Beatrix, a former monarch herself, glittered in a sparkling dress that’s been in her closet for more than two decades. She accessorized with plenty of diamonds, including the Dutch Diamond Bandeau, which began its life as an enormous diamond rivière necklace and was converted to be worn as a bandeau-style tiara in the 1930s. She also added a pair of diamond earrings and a necklace from the family vaults.

And, of course, Beatrix wore another particularly special decoration: the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. She received the order in 1985 from King Felipe’s father, King Juan Carlos. There are only fifteen living members of the order, only three of whom are women: Princess Beatrix, Queen Margrethe of Denmark, and King Felipe and Queen Letizia’s daughter, the Princess of Asturias.

And last but not least, Beatrix’s sister, Princess Margriet, was present for the banquet as well. With her patterned gray and black dress, she wore the insignia of the Order of Isabella the Catholic. She also sparkled in plenty of family diamonds, including the Dutch Laurel Wreath Tiara, and secured her order sash with a lovely pearl flower brooch.

I’ll be back here later tomorrow with jewels from the return event on day two of the Spanish state visit to the Netherlands. See you all then!