Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World
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| Eric Koch/Anefo/Nationaal Archief/Wikimedia Commons |
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| Mark Renders/Getty Images |
Princess Margaretha of Liechtenstein is one of the rare European royals who is part of two different reigning families. Married to the brother of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Margaretha is also a sister of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. Such a well-connected princess definitely needs a tiara or two, and today’s sparkler, the Luxembourg Sapphire Bracelet Bandeau, currently resides in her jewelry box.
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| Official Portrait/Grand Ducal Court of Luxembourg |
The jewel originally belonged to Margaretha’s mother, the late Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte of Luxembourg. The sapphire and diamond bracelet was one of the presents she received when she married Hereditary Grand Duke Jean in 1953. Josephine-Charlotte was born a Belgian princess, and the bracelet was a gift from the Belgian nobility. The bracelet, made by Jean Lantonnois, is set with more than 200 diamond brilliants and a single Ceylon sapphire. Josephine-Charlotte wears the bracelet on her right wrist in the official portrait above (as well as her Sapphire Art Deco Necklace Tiara).
The bracelet is marvelously convertible, which is always a good thing for a piece of royal jewelry. Josephine-Charlotte most often wore it as a bracelet, but she was also pictured wearing the central portion of the bracelet as a brooch. (Above, she uses it to secure her order sash.) She was also photographed wearing the bracelet as a bandeau-style tiara, as was her elder daughter, Princess Marie-Astrid.
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| Mark Renders/Getty Images |
After Josephine-Charlotte’s death in 2005, the family decided to sell a large amount of her jewelry, including the sapphire bracelet, at auction. Though the sale was canceled following public outcry, many pieces were quietly sold afterward. But in 2007, the sapphire bracelet made a prominent public appearance on Josephine-Charlotte’s younger daughter, Princess Margaretha, suggesting that it had been spared from the auction block.
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| Mark Renders/Getty Images |
Princess Margaretha wore the bracelet as a bandeau-style tiara for a state banquet at Laeken Castle in Belgium in March 2007. She was part of the Luxembourgish royal party visiting the Belgian royal family on that occasion. (Of course, the Belgian royals are also Margaretha’s aunts, uncles, and cousins, thanks to her mother’s Belgian royal heritage.)
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| Mark Renders/Getty Images |
Margaretha paired the bandeau with diamond and sapphire earrings and diamond bracelets for the dinner. From this angle, you get a good idea of the design of the sides of the bracelet, as well as the way those sides attach to the central element.
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| Sean Gallup/Getty Images |
We haven’t seen Margaretha wear the bracelet in bandeau form since 2007, but in 2012, she made another prominent appearance in sapphires. For the wedding of her nephew, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, she used a diamond and sapphire brooch to secure her pale pink wrap. Many have speculated that the central sapphire and diamond cluster is the same one from the bracelet, just removed and reset into a new brooch design.
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| Princess Astrid of Norway wears her diamond aigrette during the Brazilian state visit, September 2007 (Hakon Mosvold Larsen/AFP/Getty Images) |
Happy Halloween, magpies! To celebrate, I’ve got an updated top ten list for you: the very maddest tiaras from royal collections. From spooky to downright confusing, these are some of the strangest sparklers of all…
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| Princess Madeleine of Sweden wears Queen Louise’s Aquamarine Bandeau at the wedding of Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, May 2004 (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) |
10. Queen Louise’s Aquamarine Bandeau: The hunt for the maddest tiaras makes its first stop in the Bernadotte family vaults in Sweden, where this simple yet strange bandeau resides. It’s the tiara given to Princess Madeleine for her eighteenth birthday, and for many years, it was one of the only tiaras she wore. The piece is actually an heirloom, but that hasn’t stopped many royal watchers from affectionately (or not?) dubbing this one “the Cyclops.”
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| The Princess Royal wears the Aquamarine Pineflower Tiara for a dinner in Belgrave Square during a state visit from West Germany, July 1986 (Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy) |
9. The Aquamarine Pineflower Tiara: This Cartier-made tiara, which includes pinecone elements mixed with large rectangular aquamarines, was once owned by the Queen Mum. Not surprisingly, it’s not been high on the “most-worn tiaras” list for either the QM or her granddaughter, though Anne has worn it occasionally (and attempted a slight redesign).
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| Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom wears the Burmese Ruby Tiara for a state banquet at Brdo Castle in Slovenia, October 2008 (Chris Jackson/Getty Images) |
8. The Burmese Ruby Tiara: A relic of the interesting jewelry design era that was the 1970s, the Tudor roses in this modern tiara unfortunately read “big red blob” far too often for this one to be anything but a mad diamond and ruby experiment gone wrong.
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| Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden wears the Swedish Four Button Tiara at the Nobel Prize banquet, December 2012 (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) |
7. The Swedish Four-Button Tiara: Beep, beep, everybody — it’s the Jeep! The diamond buttons on this one are family heirlooms (and gorgeous diamond pieces individually), but sadly, the combination of the four together definitely reads “headlights.”
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| Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg wears the Chaumet Emerald Tiara for the Nobel Prize Banquet in Stockholm, December 2011 (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) |
6. The Chaumet Emerald Tiara: The grand ducal family of Luxembourg has some stunning pieces of jewelry tucked away in their palace vaults … and then they also have this tiara, suitable for Wonder Woman’s fanciest gala appearances. (The egg-sized emerald almost saves it, though!)
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| Anne Abel Smith wears the Teck Ears of Wheat Tiara as she marries David Liddell-Grainger, December 1957 (Ron Burton/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) |
5. The Teck Ears of Wheat Tiara: Tiaras featuring ears of wheat designs are often a little difficult to pull off, but at certain times, this classic British royal example of the genre reads more than a little like skeleton fingers. Eek!
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| Queen Sonja of Norway wears her Modern Gold Tiara for a state banquet at Bellevue Palace in Berlin, October 2007 (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) |
4. Queen Sonja’s Modern Gold Tiara: It’s just never good when a queen consort’s tiara would look right at home on the set of a sci-fi flick — and even worse when one of the central element options looks uncomfortably like an ant!
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| Elia Zaharia wears the Albanian Sapphire Ram Tiara at her wedding to Leka of Albania, October 2016 (AFP/Getty Images) |
3. The Albanian Sapphire Ram Tiara: When your national symbol is a helmet topped by a ram, you’re in for some interesting tiara designs. This sapphire ram tiara is definitely an original!
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| Princess Astrid of Norway wears her wing-shaped diamond aigrette for a gala dinner in honor of President Zuma of South Africa, August 2011 (Stian Lysberg Solum/AFP/Getty Images) |
2. Princess Astrid’s Aigrettes: According to Astrid herself, she’s pretty sure she can pick up radio signals from across Europe with her two diamond aigrettes — the diamond wing tiara and the one that looks like ruby and diamond antennae!
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| Queen Margrethe II of Denmark wears the Golden Poppies, 1990 (INTERFOTO/Alamy) |
1. Queen Margrethe II’s Golden Poppies: Not so much a tiara, really, as an experience — and by “experience,” I mean a giant creepy gold headdress made of flowers and bugs. It’s another relic of the 1970s, when tiara makers got terribly creative. I don’t know, though — it’s Daisy, after all. If she’s not going to wear a truly mad tiara, who will???