Queen Camilla ended her Royal Ascot brooch streak on Saturday, but for good reason: she wore her spectacular suite of antique pink topaz jewels for the races instead!
The King and the Queen were the only royals in today’s carriage procession. They’ve certainly kept up the Royal Ascot legacy pace of the late Queen Elizabeth II: Queen Camilla attended all five days of this year’s race meeting, while King Charles was present for four. Today, they were joined in their carriage by a member of the Qatari royal family, Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani (the CEO of QIPCO, a major commercial partner of Royal Ascot, and a major collector of jewelry and art), and Jane Churchill, an interior designer and former flatmate of Queen Camilla.
The second carriage carried the Earl and Countess de la Warr (who own a stud on their Buckhurst Park estate) with the businessman and former racehorse owner Wafic Saïd and the Irish trainer Jessica Harrington. In the third carriage were the trainer and jockey Willie Mullins with his wife, Jackie, and the trainer Jamie Snowden with his wife, Lucy. And finally, in the fourth carriage were Sir Michael Stevens, who is the Keeper of the Privy Purse, with his wife, Lady Stevens, and Dominic and Claire Spencer-Churchill, son and daughter-in-law of Jane Churchill.
The King was dapper in another sapphire and diamond tie pin from his extensive collection on Saturday. We’ve seen this tie pin appear on Charles numerous times over the years.
Queen Camilla paired her pink topaz and diamond earrings, with the coordinating five-stranded pearl necklace with its pink topaz and diamond cluster clasp, with her pale pink ensemble for the final day of this year’s race meeting.
The topaz and diamond suite dates to 1830. It was sold as a brooch and matching earrings in a Sotheby’s auction in June 2000. At the time, the auction specialists who compiled the lot notes for the auction speculated that the jewels might have once been part of a much larger parure–which makes a lot of sense, given the creation date of the pieces. The jewels sold for £22,925.
We don’t really know the identity of the purchaser of the jewels at that auction, but naturally speculation rests on the then-Prince of Wales. Further speculation has posited that he might have given them to Camilla as a wedding present, five years after the purchase.
I’ve always wondered whether he might actually have purchased them for his grandmother, the Queen Mother, who celebrated her 100th birthday a few weeks after the auction. She passed in 2002, and the jewels could have made their way back into Charles and Camilla’s collection afterward. Regardless of the path, we know that Camilla had them in her jewelry box by 2006, when she began wearing the topazes in public, with the brooch arranged as the clasp of a five-stranded pearl necklace.
Camilla has worn the topaz suite for both daytime and evening occasions. Here, she pairs the earrings and necklace with the Greville Tiara for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Dinner in Malta in November 2015.
And here, she wears the earrings and necklace on the second day of Royal Ascot ten years ago, in June 2014.
Here’s one more glimpse of Queen Camilla wearing the pink topazes at Royal Ascot on Saturday.
We did also get a glimpse of another antique royal jewel on Queen Camilla on Saturday as well. On her left wrist, you’ll spot a diamond and ruby bracelet.
It’s part of the set of Art Deco bracelets, made by Cartier, that King George VI gave to Queen Elizabeth when they were Duke and Duchess of York. Three of the bracelets can be placed on a frame to be worn as a bandeau tiara. The late Queen wore the bracelets on occasion, and Queen Camilla made her debut in the emerald bracelet from the set back in February.
That’s a wrap for Royal Ascot this year, but before we go today, let’s have a look back at the luminous brooches worn by Queen Camilla over the previous four days of the race meeting. The sparkle began on Tuesday with Prince Albert’s Brooch, worn with diamond, sapphire, ruby, and pearl earrings that also belonged to the late Queen Elizabeth II.
On Wednesday, Queen Camilla brought out another royal heirloom wedding gift: the diamond and turquoise brooch given to Queen Mary by her parents-in-law, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. She paired the brooch with coordinating diamond and turquoise earrings.
For Ladies’ Day on Thursday, Camilla glowed in the remarkable Ladies of India Brooch, one of the jewels given to Queen Mary during the Delhi Durbar celebrations in 1911, and a pair of diamond floral earrings.
On Friday, we saw Camilla sparkling in the late Queen Elizabeth II’s beloved Jardine Star Brooch. She also wore her favorite diamond floral clip and pearl drop earrings.
And Saturday, to recap, Camilla wore the earrings and necklace from her own demi-parure of antique diamond, pink topaz, and pearl jewels. Which of Queen Camilla’s Royal Ascot jewelry looks was your favorite this year?
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