Italy – Page 25

Creepy-Crawly Royal Jewels

10.24.2016 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Queen Maxima wearing a pair of spider brooches (Photo: MARTIJN BEEKMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Halloween is nearly upon us, which means that it’s time to celebrate all of the creepiest, crawliest, slither-iest jewels in royal jewelry boxes. If you like your bugs and snakes better in diamond form, this is the post for you!

Photo: Tim Rooke – Pool/Getty Images

The Duchess of Cornwall often wears a classically-designed serpent necklace at gala events. She’s had this one for years and years, and it’s still slithering on.

Queen Alexandra, then Princess of Wales, wears a snake bracelet

With her snake necklace, Camilla’s just following in the footsteps of another Windsor. Queen Alexandra also famously wore a golden snake bracelet wrapped around her wrist.

Photo: Clive Limpkin/Daily Express/Getty Images

I’ve seen some describe the pearly circle tiara that once belonged to the Kent ladies as a tiara of coiled snakes. Do you see it?

Photo: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

Surely the most significant royal snake necklace of all is the enormous serpent worn by Sheikha Mozah of Qatar at a Guildhall banquet in 2010. The piece is reportedly by Cartier. Also: THAT RING!

Photo: Tim Rooke – Pool/Getty Images

Also fond of reptilian jewelry: the Duchess of Cambridge, who wore crocodile earrings by Patrick Mavros in New York in 2014.

Photo: MJ Kim/Getty Images

The Duchess of Cornwall doesn’t only wear reptiles: she also has a growing collection of insect jewelry, including a large stick insect brooch.

Photo: Joern Pollex/Getty Images

The Dutch royal collection also includes numerous insect pieces, including this lovely diamond moth.

Photo: ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN/AFP/Getty Images

But the creepiest jewels in the Netherlands, without a doubt, must be the spider brooches worn by Queen Maxima.

Photo: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images

Sheikha Mozah has also stepped out in a pair of stylized beetle ornaments.

Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

And the Bernadottes in Sweden famously own a necklace of scarab beetles, passed down from Margaret of Connaught to Prince Bertil and Princess Lilian, who bequeathed it to Queen Silvia.

Photo: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

But clearly we can’t end a post on buggy royal jewels without a peek at the tiara of diamond and ruby dragonflies worn by Camilla of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Creepy and elegant!

The Savoy Tourmaline Tiara

10.08.2016 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

The Savoy Tourmaline Tiara (Photo: VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images)

When a royal family heads into exile, often their jewels are quickly sold — but not always. The former royal family of Italy has retained some significant pieces, not the least of which is the tiara from the pink tourmaline parure.

The stones in this piece are often misidentified as pink topazes rather than tourmalines, but Stefano Papi and Gabriella of Savoy (daughter of Italy’s last king) cleared up the confusion in their book collaboration, Jewels of the House of Savoy. But the gem-studded history of the suite is even more complicated, because the pieces of the parure were originally set with garnets instead.

Photo: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

Unusually for a major royal tiara, this piece has stayed in Italy throughout its history. It originally belonged to Queen Maria Theresa of Sardinia, a member of the Tuscan branch of the Habsburg family, who died in 1855. Her son Ferdinand, the Duke of Genoa, inherited the tiara, but he died only a month after his mother. His wife, Princess Elisabeth of Saxony, continued to wear the tiara, eventually bequeathing it to her daughter, Margherita of Savoy.

Margherita married King Umberto I of Italy, and it has remained with their descendants to this day. Prince Vittorio Emanuele, one of the current pretenders to the Italian throne, now owns the piece, and his wife, the water-skiing Princess Marina, dons it occasionally. In 2004, she wore the tiara (tilted back like a headband) at the pre-wedding gala for Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark.

Photo: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

The tourmaline tiara had its most significant public outing in recent years at the wedding of Vittorio Emanuele and Marina’s son, Emanuele Filiberto, to French actress Clotilde Courau. She wore the tiara with earrings from the coordinating parure.

Photo: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Clotilde also wore the earrings at the Monegasque princely wedding in 2011. This outing demonstrated the parure’s versatility, as different shaped drops can be interchanged for different looks.

The Sunday Ring: Queen Marie-Jose’s Ruby Ring

09.18.2016 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Queen Marie-Jose’s Ruby Ring (Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

Lots of royals have ruby rings in their jewelry collections, but today’s ruby ring, which once belonged to Queen Marie-Jose of Italy, is one of the largest and most beautiful ruby rings ever to grace a royal hand.

Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

The ring was made in the late nineteenth century; it features an oval-shaped, 8.48 carat Burmese ruby set in a cluster of cushion-shaped diamonds. The ruby is an example of a “pigeon’s blood” ruby, one of the most valuable types of rubies.

Marie-Jose of Italy (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

In January 1930, the ring was one of the presents given to Princess Marie-Jose of Belgium on her wedding to Crown Prince Umberto of Italy. (You can read our extensive post on their royal wedding over here.) The giver was Tammaro de Marinis, an Italian scholar and researcher who became one of Marie-Jose’s friends. Umberto and Marie-Jose eventually became the last King and Queen of Italy; he reigned for about a month in 1946. Marie-Jose was photographed wearing the ring both before and after her husband’s short tenure as monarch.

Photo: Sotheby’s

In 1997, four years before Marie-Jose’s death, the ruby ring was offered for sale in an auction at Sotheby’s in Switzerland. It was sold again two years later at Christie’s in Geneva. Last November the ring was offered for sale once more, this time at Sotheby’s in Geneva. The auction estimates for the piece ranged from $5.8 to $8.7 million, but when the auction was over, the piece failed to sell.