Royal Pearls of Remembrance for Queen Letizia in Madrid

On Sunday, the King and Queen of Spain joined members of their extended family to remember the life of his late cousin in Madrid, and Queen Letizia wore pearls with special meaning for the occasion.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain were present on Sunday for a funeral mass celebrating the life of his cousin, Juan Gómez-Acebo y Borbón, 3rd Viscount of La Torre. The service was held at the Cathedral Church of the Armed Forces near the Royal Palace in Madrid.

Juan Gómez-Acebo was the second child of Infanta Pilar of Spain, daughter of the Count and Countess of Barcelona and sister of King Juan Carlos, and her husband, Luis Gómez-Acebo, 2nd Viscount of La Torre. Juan, 54, died of cancer in Mallorca in August. He is survived by a young son, Nicolás, as well as by his current partner, Teresa Véret. Nicolás inherits his father’s aristocratic title, becoming the 4th Viscount of La Torre.

The family of the late Infanta Pilar has endured a year of tragedy. In March, the Gómez-Acebos mourned the passing of Fernando, the youngest of Pilar’s five children. Fernando, 49, died after a long battle with respiratory issues. At Fernando’s memorial mass in April, Juan was photographed warmly embracing his uncle, King Juan Carlos. Now, the three remaining siblings, Simoneta, Bruno, and Beltrán, have buried a second brother in the span of six months.

King Felipe attended the interment of Juan’s ashes in the family mausoleum on Sunday before joining Queen Letizia at the funeral mass. Both wore somber black as they arrived for the service.

With her black dress, Queen Letizia wore pearl drop earrings and a single-stranded pearl necklace. Pearls are a traditional jewel of mourning, representing glistening tears.

These pearls, though, had additional significance for the family members who gathered at the church to remember the late viscount. Queen Letizia’s necklace is part of the joyas de pasar collection, a grouping of jewels assembled by the King’s great-grandmother, Queen Ena. She indicated in her will that the jewels should pass from monarch to monarch, to be used by woman holding the title of Queen of Spain. Both King Felipe and Juan Gómez-Acebo are great-grandsons of Queen Ena.

The necklace, which is strung with 37 large round pearls, was included by Queen Ena in the joyas de pasar collection. She received the pearls from her husband, King Alfonso XIII, as a wedding present in 1906. Ena wears the necklace in the portrait above, which was painted by the prominent royal portraitist Philip de László around 1910.

The family has carried out Queen Ena’s wishes, passing the joyas collection down through the generations to each reigning monarch. During King Juan Carlos’s reign, the necklace was worn by Queen Sofia. Above, she wears the pearls at the Vatican in April 2005.

When King Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of his son a decade ago, the jewels were handed over to King Felipe and Queen Letizia. She has slowly worked her way through the collection, and now has worn virtually all of the pieces included in the grouping. The 37-pearl necklace has only been worn by Letizia a handful of times, including a prominent outing during a visit from the President of Germany in 2018. On that occasion, she positioned the pearls so that the necklace’s diamond clasp was visible.

Here’s another look at Letizia wearing the pearls this weekend in Madrid. For this occasion, she wore them more traditionally, with the clasp placed at the nape of her neck.

As usual, Letizia kept the rest of her jewelry extremely minimal, wearing just her Coreterno ring on the index finger of her left hand.

Several other members of the extended Spanish royal family were present for the mass as well. King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia were both there, though as usual they arrived separately. Juan Carlos’s sister, Infanta Margarita, was present with her husband, Carlos Zurita, and their daughter, María Sofía. So were Infanta Cristina with three of her children, plus the two children of Infanta Elena. (She was in Paris for the Paralympics.) Also there were Princess Alexia of Greece and Denmark; the Dowager Duchess of Calabria with the Duke of Calabria and Princess Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies; and Prince Konstantin-Assen and Princess Maria of Bulgaria, as well as other Spanish and foreign royal family members.

Above, a glimpse of the jewels that Queen Sofia wore on her arrival at the cathedral: three strands of multicolored pearls, a brooch, and a pair of earrings with gemstone drops.

And here’s a look at the jewels worn by Infanta Cristina for the service. With her pavé-set diamond earrings, she wore a lovely diamond floral brooch pinned to her dress.