Crown Princess Louise’s Scintillating Swedish Royal Sapphire Tiara

Seventy-four years ago today, King Gustaf V of Sweden’s passing put his son and daughter-in-law, King Gustaf VI Adolf and Queen Louise, on the Swedish throne. In honor of the anniversary, I’ve got a look today at a fascinating set of bejeweled gala portraits of Louise, the German-British princess who lost her title and then gained a kingdom.

The images were taken in the late 1930s, when Louise was still Crown Princess of Sweden. They depict her wearing traditional Swedish court dress, which consisted of a black and white velvet gown worn with ermine-trimmed velvet robes and a lace veil. Swedish royal ladies also pinned on their medals and decorations and often carried a fan. And, of course, there were always magnificent tiaras and jewels worn with the entire ensemble.

Born a Princess of Battenberg, Louise was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s second daughter, Princess Alice. Her aunts and cousins married into royal houses across Europe. Her aunts included Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Tsarina of Russia, and Grand Duchess Ella Feodorovna, and her uncle was the last Grand Duke of Hesse. Louise and her siblings–Princess Alice (mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh), Prince George (later 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven) and Prince Louis (later Lord Mountbatten)–grew up both in Germany and Britain. Her father, Louis, was an Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord in the British Navy. At the request of King George V, the family gave up their German royal titles during World War I.

In 1923, Louise was surprised when the widowed Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden reached out to begin courting her. They married that November, and Louise became not only a crown princess but also a stepmother to Gustaf’s five children, including Prince Gustaf (father of the present King of Sweden) and Princess Ingrid (grandmother of the present King of Denmark). Gustaf and Louise were married until her passing in 1965, fifteen years after he inherited the throne.

In these gala portraits, taken fifteen years after her royal wedding, Louise has clearly settled confidently into her role as Crown Princess of Sweden. Her longevity with the family is reflected in the numerous medals and ribbons pinned to her robes. She wears the Royal Family Order of her father-in-law, King Gustaf V, as well as a medal commemorating his 70th birthday in 1928. Other medals in the collection include the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal, issued in 1935, and the King George VI Coronation Medal, issued in 1937. She also wears several decorations related to her nursing service in World War I, including the Royal Red Cross, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.

But, of course, it’s the jewelry that takes the spotlight in the images. In the portraits, Louise wears the grand tiara from the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure, as well as the matching necklace and earrings. The suite is one of many in the Bernadotte vaults that dates to the early nineteenth century–and that can be traced back to their French imperial ancestors, the Bonapartes. Empress Joséphine of France, the first wife of Napoleon I, gave the sapphire jewels to her daughter-in-law, Princess Augusta, Duchess of Leuchtenberg, in the winter of 1810-11. The parure was a special gift to mark the birth of Augusta’s first son, Prince Auguste.

The sapphires came to Sweden with Augusta’s eldest daughter, Princess Joséphine of Leuchtenberg, who married Crown Prince Oscar in 1823, a century before Gustaf and Louise’s own royal wedding. The sapphires have been in Sweden ever since, and they’re largely the same as they were when Augusta received them two hundred years ago. In the late nineteenth century, Louise’s mother-in-law, Queen Victoria of Sweden, disposed of the earrings from the original set. (She never wore earrings herself.) The pair of coordinating earrings worn by Louise here were made by repurposing a pair of hairpins from the suite. The tiara, earrings, and necklace, along with the other pieces of the parure, are still in Stockholm today, where they’re primarily worn by Queen Silvia.

More coordinating diamond pieces also sparkle brightly on Louise’s gown and robes in the pictures. The diamond stomacher pinned to her bodice is also a legacy from Joséphine of Leuchtenberg. Today, the piece has been transformed and is worn as a necklace. Louise has also layered a long diamond sautoir necklace over the sapphires and the stomacher. The piece features a large pear-shaped diamond pendant.

Even more diamonds glittered on Louise’s wrists in the photographs. She wore two of the largest diamond bracelets in the Swedish royal vaults. The large diamond bracelet on her left wrist, with an intricate lattice-style pattern, belonged to Queen Sofia of Sweden. Crown Princess Victoria memorably wore the same bracelet at her pre-wedding gala in 2010. For these portraits, Louise stacked it with a smaller cuff-style bracelet with scrolling ends.

And on her right wrist, Louise wore the family’s Diamond Zig-Zag Bracelet. Originally a choker from the collection of Grand Duchess Louise of Baden, mother of Queen Victoria of Sweden, the bracelet is perhaps most recognizable today because Princess Madeleine wore it on her wedding day in 2013. One of our most recent sightings of the bracelet took place at last year’s Nobel Prize ceremony.