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Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Margrethe’s 75th Birthday: Celebrations in Aarhus

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Her actual birthday may not be until next week, but the big celebrations for Queen Margrethe’s 75th kicked off yesterday in Aarhus. Let’s have a look at some of the jewelry on display, shall we?

The Queen wore her ruby “grapes” demi-parure for the daytime celebrations. The set, which includes a brooch and earrings, was a 70th birthday gift from the Masters of the Royal Hunt.

Crown Princess Mary donned a brooch with major historical provenance — that’s the Connaught Sapphire Brooch pinned to her jacket. You can read much more about the brooch’s generations-long history here.

For the second time in a month, Princess Marie also wore an heirloom jewel. The brooch she wears is made of diamonds and sapphires; it can also be worn as a pendant. The piece belonged to the current queen’s paternal grandmother, Queen Alexandrine.

Some of the sapphires in Margrethe’s diamond and sapphire demi-parure, worn to the evening gala event, also came from Alexandrine’s collection.

The crown princess’s jewelry at the gala was the stunning surprise of the evening. Mary wore a new diamond necklace, which television commentators in Denmark said could also be worn as a tiara. She paired the elaborate necklace with simple diamond drop earrings.

Marie went more minimalist with her gala jewels, wearing long diamond earrings and a bracelet.

I’m always pleasantly surprised when the Countess of Frederiksborg, Prince Joachim’s ex-wife, appears at these gala events! Alexandra also clearly got the earrings-and-bracelet memo.

The Top Ten: Royal Diamond Necklaces

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Time for the second in our series of top ten royal diamond posts for April! This week: all-diamond necklaces worn by royal ladies. As always, feel free to post your own top ten list in the comments below!

10. Queen Mathilde’s Diamond Necklace

Mathilde’s jewelry box may be relatively small, but the diamond necklace she wore to the pre-wedding dinner for Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume of Luxembourg in 2012 is one of my favorites.

9. The Nassau Diamond Drop Necklace

This diamond necklace, with its distinctive central pendant drop, has been in the Luxembourgish collection for two generations; it’s been worn by both the late Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte and her daughter-in-law, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa.

8. Princess Caroline’s Diamond Fringe Necklace

The diamond fringe necklace that belongs to Princess Caroline of Monaco is an absolutely design classic, worn to perfection by a glamorous princess.

7. Queen Anne-Marie and Princess Benedikte’s Twin Diamond Necklaces

Princess Benedikte of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg and her younger sister, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, have identical, intricate diamond necklaces; they were made by dividing up a sautoir that belonged to their grandmother, Queen Alexandrine of Denmark.

6. The Dutch Diamond Rivière Necklace

The lovely diamond rivière from the Dutch royal collection packs a major, sparkly punch, especially when paired with the family’s diamond bandeau tiara. The necklace can also be worn with a diamond pendant.

5. Queen Ena’s Diamond Collet Necklace

The dramatic diamond collet necklace from the Spanish royal collection is a part of the joyas de pasar, a cache of jewels that is designated for the use of the country’s queen.

4. Queen Josefina’s Diamond Stomacher Necklace

The intricate diamond necklace worn for years by Princess Lilian of Sweden — and now by her niece, Crown Princess Victoria — was originally part of a diamond stomacher that belonged to Josephine of Leuchtenberg.

3. The Nizam of Hyderabad Necklace

This elaborate floral Cartier necklace was a wedding gift to Queen Elizabeth II in 1947 from the Nizam of Hyderabad, though Elizabeth herself selected it from Cartier’s stock.

2. The Coronation Necklace

Made in 1858, this incredible diamond necklace has been worn by four queens — Alexandra, Mary, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth II — at their coronations. The necklace’s pendant is the Lahore Diamond, which alone weighs more than 22 carats.

1. The Greville Diamond Necklace

Part of the astonishing jewel bequest left to the Queen Mother by the Hon. Mrs. Greville, this five-stranded necklace of diamonds has been worn most recently by the Duchess of Cornwall. If I had this one, I’d wear it everywhere! 🙂

Saturday Sparkler: Queen Maud’s Diamond Tiara

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Queen Maud of Norway [source]

The biggest diamond tiara in the Norwegian royal vaults is the stunning diadem that belonged to Queen Josefina of Sweden and Norway. However, there are reports that another historic diamond tiara — the one that once belonged to Queen Maud — has returned to the royal fold.

 
Queen Maud [source]
 
 

This tri-level diamond tiara was among the wedding presents that Princess Maud of Wales, the daughter of the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, received when she married her first cousin, Prince Carl of Denmark, in 1896. The base of the tiara is a diamond bandeau; above that sits a level of diamond floral elements; and atop that is perched a row of thirteen diamond buttons. Trond Norén Isaksen explains that Maud sometimes swapped out the top row of diamonds for turquoises. After she inherited her mother’s diamond and turquoise circlet, however, Maud used the turquoises in other pieces of jewelry.

Maud in her 1902 coronation robes [source]
 

Princess Maud wore the diamond tiara at the coronation of her parents in 1902. And then, three years later, something rather unexpected happened. In 1905, the newly-independent people of Norway voted to elect Maud’s husband as the new king of their country. Carl accepted the job and took on the regnal name of King Haakon VII, and Maud became a queen. She wore her diamond tiara frequently during her tenure as Norway’s queen; she even chose to wear it for the wedding of her only son, Olav, to Princess Märtha of Sweden in 1929.

 

Queen Maud and Crown Prince Olav [source]
 

Maud’s jewels went through a strange thirty-year odyssey following her unexpected death. Queen Maud liked to travel back to her British homeland often to visit relatives, and during one of these visits in 1938, she died of a heart attack. She had brought her jewels with her on that particular trip, intending to have the pieces cleaned. They weren’t returned to Norway with the late queen’s body, and with the outbreak of World War II the following year, the jewels were stashed away in Windsor Castle for safekeeping.

 

It wasn’t until 1953 that the jewels were reclaimed by Maud’s son and daughter-in-law, Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha, who brought them back to Norway following the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. But then Märtha died unexpectedly in 1954, and Maud’s jewels were not brought out again until Olav’s son, the future King Harald V, married in 1968.  When Olav and Märtha’s three children finally divided up the late queen’s jewels, Princess Ragnhild chose this tiara from the collection. She wore it frequently at royal events, usually in rotation with the diamond and pearl Boucheron tiara that she received from her maternal grandmother, Princess Ingeborg.

 

Queen Maud [source]
 

But unlike the Boucheron tiara, Queen Maud’s diamond tiara reportedly returned to the royal collection after Ragnhild’s death in 2012. (The tiaras that Princess Astrid received from her grandmother’s collection are expected to do the same after her death one day.) But, if it is currently back in the vaults, it’s not yet surfaced on the heads of one of the current Norwegian royal ladies. Many seem to think that Crown Princess Mette-Marit might be the first to wear the tiara, but it could also show up on Queen Sonja or Princess Märtha Louise. What do you think, dear readers: which Norwegian princess will be the first to wear Queen Maud’s diamond tiara in public again?