The Danish state visit to Sweden has officially kicked off, and three dazzling royal brooches were in attendance at the official welcome ceremony at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
King Frederik X and Queen Mary of Denmark sailed to Stockholm aboard the Royal Yacht Dannebrog for a state visit with their Swedish counterparts. On Monday, the visit began with a dramatic flourish. Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden escorted the Danes to the Royal Palace aboard the Swedish royal barge, the Vasaorden.
Frederik and Mary stepped ashore and were greeted by their royal hosts, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden. The state visit is the first of King Frederik’s reign. He ascended to the throne in January after the abdication of his mother, Queen Margrethe. In recent generations, it’s been traditional for a new Danish monarch to make state visits to fellow Scandinavian monarchs early on after his or her accession.
The scene was reminiscent of so many Danish royal visits to Sweden in years past. Here’s King Frederik’s mother, Queen Margrethe, chatting with King Carl XVI Gustaf as she arrives in Stockholm for the most recent Danish state visit to Sweden in 1985. She also made a state visit to Sweden in 1973, when her grandfather, King Gustaf VI Adolf, was still on the Swedish throne.
State visits between Scandinavian monarchs are also family reunions, because all of them are cousins. The present monarchs of Sweden and Denmark are first cousins once removed. King Frederik X of Denmark is a great-grandson of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, who was also the grandfather of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
Inside the royal palace, the welcome ceremony continued with an official photograph. Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, with Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar, and Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia joined the monarchs and their spouses for the picture.
Both King Frederik and King Carl Gustaf wore uniforms for the welcome ceremony. Queen Mary was elegant in a white tweed dress with navy accessories, plus blue and white jewelry.
Mary paired antique diamond earrings from her personal collection with a special diamond, sapphire, and pearl brooch with ties to her Swedish royal hosts.
Here’s a closer look at the diamond cluster earrings, which were sold by the Danish auction house Bruun Rasmussen. Mary has acquired numerous pieces of antique jewelry sold by Bruun Rasmussen over the past decade.
And here’s the spotlight piece of her welcome ceremony ensemble: the Connaught Sapphire Brooch. The brooch features a large central sapphire in an elaborate diamond frame, with a pearl festoon and a pearl and diamond pendant. The piece dates to the nineteenth century.
As its name suggests, the brooch originally belonged to the Connaught family. Princess Margaret of Connaught, the first wife of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, reportedly inherited it from her mother, Princess Louise, Duchess of Connaught. Margaret of Connaught is, in many ways, the lost matriarch of both the Swedish and Danish royal families. Her early death in 1920 cast a long shadow over her husband and children.
In the photograph above, she’s pictured with her husband, Gustaf, and their four eldest children. In the center of the image are Prince Gustaf Adolf, the father of the present King of Sweden, and Princess Ingrid, the grandmother of the present King of Denmark. Princess Ingrid, who became Queen of Denmark through her marriage to King Frederik IX, inherited a great deal of her mother’s jewelry. The Connaught Sapphire Brooch was one of those pieces.
The brooch passed from Queen Ingrid to her daughter, Queen Margrethe. In 2006, she gifted it to her daughter-in-law, Queen Mary, to mark the birth of a new heir to the Danish throne, Prince Christian. Mary has worn the brooch often throughout the years. Above, she wears it, with the antique diamond cluster earrings, during Crown Prince Christian’s 18th birthday celebrations in October 2023.
More recently, we saw Mary wear the brooch a reception at the Danish Folketing after King Frederik’s accession to the throne in January.
On Monday, Mary also wore a pair of necklaces–almost certainly the ones that feature the initials of her husband and children–plus bracelets and rings on both hands.
Here’s a closer look at her bracelets. She wore a pair of gold Cartier Love Bracelets on her left wrist. On her right, she paired a diamond and sapphire bracelet with a diamond bangle.
Queen Silvia was bright at the welcome ceremony in a pink and yellow outfit with a bold houndstooth print.
She wore antique pearl drop earrings, a pearl torsade necklace, and a lovely pearl and diamond brooch from the Swedish royal vaults. The floral pearl drop brooch has been in the collection for more than a century, and it can be worn both with and without its pendant pearl drop.
Crown Princess Victoria was elegant in a lavender outfit with black accents and accessories for the welcome ceremony.
She wore the diamond earrings that were once part of Queen Josefina’s Diamond Stomacher, plus a delicate diamond and pearl bow brooch with a pearl drop, also from the family collection. Princess Madeleine memorably wore this bow brooch at the Nobels in 2016.
Victoria shifted her brooch, plus the miniature ribbon of Denmark’s Order of the Elephant, to her dress inside the palace. She also wore a necklace with a diamond horseshoe charm. Princess Estelle wore a necklace with a petite pendant and a bracelet for the welcome events. Both Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar have a special connection to the Danish royal visitors. Queen Mary is one of Estelle’s godmothers, and Estelle was also given “Mary” as one of her middle names in Queen Mary’s honor. King Frederik is also one of Oscar’s godparents.
The Swedish royal party was rounded out by Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia. Sofia wore delicate bracelets and her engagement and wedding rings with her outfit, which had an extra jeweled touch thanks to a series of pearly buttons.
I’ll be back here later today with jewels from tonight’s state banquet in Stockholm!
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