King Charles III and Queen Camilla have officially begun the first Australian royal visit of his reign, with a spectacular royal heirloom brooch making a sparkling return Down Under.
The King and Queen of Australia touched down in Sydney on Friday, embarking on the first royal tour of his reign. Charles III becomes the second Australian monarch to personally visit the country during his reign, after his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
For her arrival in rainy Sydney on Friday, Queen Camilla wore a favorite royal blue dress from her collection. The dress, which has a matching coat, has been worn numerous times this year, including appearances at Royal Ascot and during the Japanese state visit to Britain.
As expected, Camilla also wore an important piece of Australian royal history as she arrived for her first visit to the country as Queen: the Wattle Brooch.
The brooch, which is made of platinum and set with white and yellow diamonds, was made as a coronation gift for Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The Australian government commissioned William Drummond & Co., a jeweler located in Melbourne, to make the brooch. The jewel was a tribute to Australia’s national flower, the golden wattle. The wattle is represented by the yellow diamonds in the brooch, while the white floral spray in the center of the piece is designed to resemble the Australian tea tree.
The completed brooch was flown from Melbourne to Canberra in February 1954, sewn inside the jacket pocket of one of the firm’s employees. On February 16, 1954, the brooch was presented to Queen Elizabeth II by Prime Minister Robert Menzies during a state banquet at Parliament House in the Australian capital. Menzies delivered remarks before opening the box that contained the sparkling jewel. The Queen was reportedly momentarily speechless, pausing before finally simply saying, “Thank you. Thank you.”
Elizabeth wore the brooch in public for the first time the following day, when she attended a gathering of thousands of ex-servicemen and servicewomen outside Parliament House. The Daily Telegraph reported that the brooch “glittered in the sunshine on the left shoulder of the Queen’s emerald paper shantung frock.”
For the next seven decades, the brooch was a mainstay in the Queen’s jewelry collection, perhaps the favorite of all of her Commonwealth-related jewels. She wore the brooch both for events connected to Australia and more generally, especially during the spring. One of her final appearances in the brooch came on Maundy Thursday in April 2019, when she wore it at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor for the annual Royal Maundy service.
Queen Camilla has actually appeared the Wattle Brooch on one previous occasion. She wore it for her first official portrait as Queen of Australia, which was released in July of this year.
Camilla repeated the entire ensemble from that portrait for her arrival in Sydney on Friday, wearing both the blue dress and the Wattle Brooch.
Residents might have done a double take, because the official portrait made a special appearance on Friday, too. A larger-than-life version of the image was projected onto the famous Sydney Opera House to commemorate the start of the royal visit.
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