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Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Royal Ascot Jewels 2016: Day 2

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Royal Ascot 2016, Day 2 (Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

Day 2 was a real show-stopper at Royal Ascot, with a brand-new brooch and two princess-ly debuts at the races! Here’s a look at the sparkle in the royal box…

Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

I’m pretty sure we’ve got a brooch debut from the Queen on our hands! Richard Palmer of the Daily Express identifies this as “a Cartier diamond flower clip.” I’m seeing a lovely diamond rose. If it’s a clip, could it possibly be part of a pair?

Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

The Duchess of Cornwall wore more familiar jewels: her diamond and pearl drop earrings, her pearl necklace with round diamond clasp, plus her usual bracelets and rings.

Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Royal watchers were on the edge of their seats for this Ascot debut: the Duchess of Cambridge!

Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Kate wore yet another new pair of earrings, this time with pearl drops. (Perhaps she’ll have to get her own poll at the end of the week? Let me know if you want one!)

Anna identified the pair as a version of this pair of Kiki McDonough earrings. (UPDATE: Kiki McDonough says these earrings are not theirs.)

Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

The Princess Royal repeated her outfit from the 2011 royal wedding, pairing it with pearl earrings, a pearl necklace, and an abstract gold brooch that looks to be set with an amethyst.

Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The Countess of Wessex brought along another special guest with her in the carriage procession: Crown Princess Mary of Denmark!

Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

Sophie wore the same earrings that she wore at Friday’s St. Paul’s service, plus her Art Deco-style aquamarine brooch with the sapphire and diamond border.

Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

Mary wore a pair of statement earrings with large pendant drops, plus bracelets and rings.

Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

And we had another princess at the races, too: Princess Haya of Jordan, who is the junior wife of Sheikh Mohammed, the PM of the United Arab Emirates and Emir of Dubai. Both are very involved in the world of racing, and they both attend Ascot annually. Haya wore a simple, classic pair of round pearl stud earrings for Day 2.

Queen Maud’s Pearl Tiara

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Queen Maud’s Pearl Tiara, ca. 2012 (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

One of the most important sparklers in Norway, Queen Maud’s pearl tiara, graced the heads of two generations of Norwegian royal ladies. It would inevitably have crowned a few more, too — if only it hadn’t been involved in a rather notorious jewelry theft!

Queen Maud wears the original tiara (Photo: Grand Ladies Site)

The original pearl and diamond tiara that belonged to Queen Maud was given to her by her parents, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, when she married Prince Carl of Denmark in 1896. It is often reported that the tiara was commissioned from Garrard, then the official royal jeweler in Britain. The piece was a lovely wedding gift for a princess joining another royal clan, but it was never intended to become a central part of another royal family’s jewel collection. Maud unexpectedly became queen of newly-independent Norway in 1905 when her husband was chosen as the country’s new monarch. She wore the tiara, which has a large detachable central element, until her death in 1938.

Queen Maud wears the tiara (Image: Grand Ladies Site)

Maud’s son, King Olav V, inherited the tiara from his mother, but it was a long time before he was reunited with the tiara (and the rest of his mother’s jewels). Maud had taken her jewelry with her to Britain for a visit in the autumn of 1938, and she unexpectedly died while she was abroad. The late queen’s jewels were kept safe in Windsor Castle for another fifteen years, for the duration of World War II and beyond. The Norwegians were finally able to reclaim the tiara in 1953, when they visited Britain for the coronation of Olav’s cousin, Queen Elizabeth II.

Olav’s son, King Harald V, is the current owner of the tiara; he received it when Maud’s jewels were divided following his wedding to Sonja Haraldsen in 1968. Sonja wore both the large and small versions of Maud’s original tiara — above, she wears the tiara during Queen Elizabeth II’s 1981 state visit to Norway. But then, in 1995, tiara tragedy struck. The piece was sent to Garrard in London to be cleaned, and while it was there, it was stolen.

Queen Sonja wears the tiara (Photo: Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

The theft revealed the approximate value of the tiara at the time: $312,000. It has never been recovered. Garrard made a perfect replica of the original pearl and diamond tiara for the family, and that’s the tiara that Sonja has worn ever since, both in its full and smaller settings.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit wears the tiara (Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

The small version of the new tiara was lent to Harald and Sonja’s daughter, Princess Märtha Louise, for her wedding to Ari Behn in 2002. It was also worn by Crown Princess Mette-Marit at the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden in 2010 (where the upright pearls looked a bit wonky to me, possibly because she often tilts tiaras backward like headbands)…

Princess Martha Louise wears the tiara (Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

…and by Märtha Louise at Princess Madeleine’s wedding in 2013. What do you think — in the grand scheme of things, is an exact, precious replica of an antique royal tiara almost as good as the real thing?

Note: this is an updated version of an earlier post, with new images/text.

Queen Sofia’s Star and Pearl Tiara

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Princess Benedikte wears the Star and Pearl Tiara (Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

The famous trio of Danish royal sisters — Queen Margrethe II, Princess Benedikte, and Queen Anne-Marie — have an amazing collective stash of tiaras. Today’s tiara, the elaborate and unusual Star and Pearl Tiara, belongs to the middle sister of the family, Princess Benedikte.

Queen Sofia of Sweden wears the tiara

The first owner of the tiara was Queen Sofia of Sweden, who was born a princess of Nassau. When she married Crown Prince Oscar of Sweden (later King Oscar II) in 1857, she received this tiara as a wedding present. The giver was her brother Adolphe, who would later become the grand duke of Luxembourg. The tiara, which features alternating diamond stars and upright pear-shaped pearls set on diamond spikes, was apparently made about the same time, dating it to the middle of the nineteenth century. Diamond stars were incredible popular in this era, popularized by Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”) of Austria-Hungary.

In his book on Danish royal jewels, Bjarne Steen Jensen notes that the tiara was altered slightly at some point after Sofia received it. In the portrait of Sofia wearing the tiara above (which Jensen dates to the late nineteenth century), the center star is noticeably taller than the rest of the elements of the tiara. In photographs of the tiara on all of its other wearers, that middle star has been lowered so that it sits evenly with the other stars.

When she died in 1913, Sofia left the tiara to another Swedish queen: her daughter-in-law, Victoria of Baden. And when Victoria died in 1930, she was specific about who she wanted to inherit the piece: her granddaughter, Princess Ingrid. When Ingrid married Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark (later King Frederik IX) five years later, she took the tiara with her to her new country. In the photograph above, Crown Princess Ingrid wears the tiara during the 1938 celebrations for the 80th birthday of her grandfather, King Gustaf V of Sweden. (Eagle-eyed tiara spotters will also note that Ingrid’s necklace was later turned into the Antique Corsage Tiara, Anne-Marie’s 18th birthday tiara.)

During Ingrid’s lifetime, she was generous in lending this tiara to other members of the family. Her younger daughters, Anne-Marie of Greece and Benedikte of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, both borrowed the tiara from Ingrid; so did Benedikte’s daughters. In 1964, Ingrid lent the tiara to her cousin, Princess Margaretha of Denmark, to wear at Anne-Marie’s royal wedding in Athens. Jensen posits that Ingrid chose to lend Margaretha this particular tiara because it was originally owned by Margaretha’s grandmother, Queen Sofia of Sweden.

Princess Benedikte wears the tiara (Photo: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

When Queen Ingrid died in 2000, the tiara was left to Princess Benedikte. Today, Benedikte wears the tiara frequently, often pairing it with another set of star elements (from the collection of Victoria of Baden) that can be worn as brooches, earrings, hair ornaments, or even suspended on a necklace. (Unlike other star tiaras, the stars on this piece are fixed and apparently are not removed.) She also follows her mother’s example and often lends the tiara to the other women in her family. Both of Benedikte’s daughters, Alexandra and Nathalie, have been photographed in the tiara, as has her son’s partner, Carina Axelsson.

Note: This is an updated version of an older post with new text and images.