King Charles III isn’t just the sovereign of the United Kingdom. He’s also the monarch of several other nations, including fourteen additional Commonwealth Realms. Recently, Buckingham Palace released a set of official portraits for Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, ahead of the King and Queen’s first overseas Commonwealth visit later this year.
The portraits featuring King Charles wearing a navy business suit with his medals and decorations specific to each nation. Queen Camilla wears the royal blue coat and dress that have been seen so often recently (including appearances at Royal Ascot, during the Japanese state visit, and on a trip to Guernsey) with relevant royal brooches (or, in one case, a relevant piece of insignia).
This particular picture is from the series of portraits of the King and Queen of Australia. It’s particularly timely, as the palace has announced that Charles and Camilla will be traveling to Australia for a royal visit in October 2024, before continuing on to Samoa to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Here’s a closer look at the new portrait of the King of Australia. On his jacket, he’s wearing his medals. From left to right, they’re the Queen’s Service Order of New Zealand; the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal; the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal; the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal; the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal; the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal; the Royal Air Force Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (with three clasps); the Canadian Forces Decoration (with three clasps); the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal; and the New Zealand Armed Forces Award.
The King is also wearing the neck badge and star of the Order of Australia, both of which are studded with citrines. Charles, then Prince of Wales, was appointed as a Knight of the Order of Australia in March 1981. He has been the order’s sovereign since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022.
For the official portrait, the Queen of Australia wore a special brooch that was presented to the King’s mother 70 years ago: the Australian Wattle Brooch.
The brooch arrived in the late Queen’s jewelry collection during her coronation tour of the Commonwealth. The jewel was presented to Queen Elizabeth II by Prime Minister Robert Menzies during a state banquet in Canberra on February 16, 1954, on behalf of the government, parliament, and people of Australia. During the presentation, Menzies had a little trouble opening the clasp of the red box that contained the diamond brooch, but he was more successful in his remarks. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that Menzies explained that the brooch was a souvenir “of a visit to Australia which has been the most enjoyable thing in our lives.”
Here’s a closer look at the brooch. The Herald described the piece in 1954 as “a tea-tree, made of three perfectly-cut blue-white five-carat diamonds,” adding, “The leaf is edged with gold-tinted diamonds representing wattle flowers.” The platinum brooch was made by an Australian firm, William Drummond.
The late Queen owned many brooches representing various national symbols, but the wattle brooch was undoubtedly one of her favorites. She wore it regularly for the next seven decades, both for events connected to Australia and more generally as well. Here, she wears the brooch in Brisbane just a few weeks after she received it.
And here’s one of the final images of the late Queen wearing the brooch, at the annual Royal Maundy Service in Windsor in April 2019.
If my notes are correct, these portraits mark the first time that someone other than Queen Elizabeth II has worn the wattle brooch in public. It’s certainly fitting that the current Queen of Australia is the next wearer of the piece.
Two more sets of official portraits, taken on the same day in the same room with the King and Queen in the same clothing, were also released by the palace last week. On the left is a portrait of the King of New Zealand, while the portrait on the right is of the King of Canada. In the New Zealand portrait, Charles wears the neck badge of the Order of New Zealand and the star of the New Zealand Order of Merit. In the Canadian portrait, he wears the neck badge of the Order of Canada.
In her portrait as Queen of Canada, Camilla wears another important royal heirloom brooch with symbolic significance: the Diamond Maple Leaf Brooch.
The brooch was made by Asprey. It was given to Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) in 1939 by her husband, King George VI, ahead of their tour to Canada that year. Sir Hugh Roberts described the jewel in The Queen’s Diamonds as “in the form of a leaf of the Canadian Sugar Maple…the national emblem of Canada, transparent-set with brilliants and baguettes.” Elizabeth wore the brooch for the first time during their transatlantic crossing on the way to Canada.
She continued to wear it often in the years afterward, often using it with patriotic resonance during World War II. The photograph above, showing Elizabeth wearing the brooch, was taken during Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to London in the autumn of 1942. In 2002, the brooch was inherited by her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, and it is now owned by King Charles III.
The brooch has often been loaned over the years to other royal women making trips to Canada. Princess Elizabeth, as she was then, wore the brooch during her first tour of Canada in 1951. The Duchess of Cambridge wore the brooch on several occasions during the royal tours of 2011 and 2016. Queen Camilla has also worn the brooch before, including an outing during her royal tour of Canada as Duchess of Cornwall in 2009.
The portrait of the Queen of New Zealand features one of Camilla’s most recent royal decorations. Rather than a brooch, she wears the ribbon and badge of the Order of New Zealand, which she received on June 5, 2023, as part of the King’s New Zealand Birthday and Coronation Honours.
If Camilla hadn’t worn her order badge and ribbon for the portrait, I expect we would have seen her wear, for the first time in public, the New Zealand Silver Fern Brooch. Like the Australian Wattle Brooch, this was a national gift, presented to Queen Elizabeth II during her coronation tour on Christmas Day in 1953. She treasured the brooch and wore it often, and in 2014, she loaned it to the then-Duchess of Cambridge for her royal visit to New Zealand as well. I imagine that the next time we see this brooch in public, it will be worn by Queen Camilla.
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