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Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Celebrating Princess Marie’s Wedding Jewels

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Princess Marie and Prince Joachim on their wedding day, 24 May 2008 (JEPPE MICHAEL JENSEN/AFP/Getty Images)
Today marks the tenth wedding anniversary of Prince Joachim and Princess Marie of Denmark. They probably won’t be doing a lot of milestone celebrating today — Danes put more emphasis on the 12.5 anniversary (halfway to 25 years) than the tenth — but we’re marking the anniversary today with a roundup of our posts on the jewels of their royal wedding. Enjoy!

Princess Marie and Prince Joachim on their wedding day, 24 May 2008 (Soren Bidstrup/AFP/Getty Images)

Queen Margrethe’s Rooster Brooch

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Margrethe wears the brooch at the Diocletian palace in Split during an official visit to Croatia, 24 October 2014 (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Brooches with animal themes are popular in royal collections, but not many monarchs have a bejeweled chicken in their jewel vaults! We’re wrapping up our month-long tour of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s jewelry box with a look at her very own rooster brooch, which she’s been gamely sporting for half a century.

STR/AFP/Getty Images

The brooch is made of white and yellow gold and set with numerous gemstones, including diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and a large pearl.

Margrethe wears the brooch during a tour of the United Nations in New York, 9 June 2011 (DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

Margrethe received the brooch in August 1968, when she was still Denmark’s crown princess. According to Bjarne Steen Jensen, the brooch was presented to Margrethe when she christened the Prinsesse Margrethe, a ferry boat that ran on a regular route between Copenhagen and Oslo. The brooch was reportedly a gift from the Riva Trigoso Shipyard, the Italian shipyard where the boat was made.

In Italian culture, roosters are symbols of good luck. But there’s likely an even more timely symbolic explanation for the gift: the brooch was given to Margrethe the year after her marriage to a French diplomat, Henri de Laborde de Monpezat. The Gallic rooster is one of the most important national symbols of France.

Margrethe wears the brooch during a meeting with Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France in Copenhagen, 21 October 2013 (Nikolai Linares/AFP/Getty Images)

Margrethe has worn the brooch regularly in the fifty years that have elapsed since the gift, wearing it for a variety of daytime engagements. Appropriately, she wore the brooch in Paris during her state visit to France in 1978. Above, she chose the brooch again to receive the French prime minister in October 2013.

Margrethe wears the brooch to celebrate her 69th birthday in Copenhagen, 16 April 2009 (Schiller Graphics/Getty Images)

Margrethe has also used the brooch for family celebrations. In April 2009, she wore the brooch as she greeted the public with the rest of the royal family on the occasion of her 69th birthday.

The Devonshire Turquoise Brooch

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LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, we discussed a brooch that Queen Margrethe II of Denmark received from her British royal aunt, Lady Patricia Ramsay, and today, we’re focusing on another brooch that links Margrethe with her British royal heritage: the Devonshire Turquoise Brooch.

An illustration of the brooch from Margaret’s wedding gift list

The brooch originally belonged to Margrethe’s grandmother, Princess Margaret of Connaught, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. When Margaret married the future King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden in 1905, she received a treasure trove of wedding gifts. The haul included this classic, streamlined brooch, set with a single cabochon turquoise enhanced by a quartet of diamond brilliants. The brooch was presented to Margaret by a very influential British aristocratic couple: Spencer and Louise Cavendish, Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.

You may recall Spencer and Louise’s names; they’re the pair responsible for the massive Devonshire Diadem. If you missed it, I wrote an article on the tiara for last year’s Mitford Annual. You can find out how to purchase it — and read a preview! — over here.

Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images

When Margaret died in 1920, the brooch was one of the items bequeathed to her only daughter, Princess Ingrid of Sweden, who later became Queen Ingrid of Denmark. She wore the brooch occasionally, even once posing with it for an official Swedish court portrait. But fairly early on, she decided to pass the brooch along to her own eldest daughter, Queen Margrethe. We don’t seem to know exactly when that happened; in his book on the Danish royal jewels, Bjarne Steen Jensen notes merely that Ingrid gave the brooch to Margrethe “when she was very young.”

LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images

Margrethe has worn the brooch throughout her life. Jensen even declares that it is “one of the brooches the Queen has most often used.” The simplicity of the brooch makes it easy to coordinate with other jewels, including pearls and diamonds. It also works well with numerous colors. Here, Margrethe highlights the brooch against a white jacket during a 2008 visit to Mexico City.

KELD NAVNTOFT/AFP/Getty Images

The brooch also manages to shine when it’s worn against vivid blue, as you can see in this image from the welcome ceremony during the 2012 Chinese state visit to Copenhagen. The distinctive, bright diamonds really pop in this appearance.