magpie of the month

May (when Princess of Wales), ca. 1905, wearing the Love Trophy Collar [1]

In our inaugural month of May here at the Court Jeweller, was there any other possible choice for Magpie of the Month than “May” herself, Queen Mary? Born in May, Victoria Mary of Teck was the queen consort of King George V of the United Kingdom, and she was one of the most innovative jewelry collectors and wearers of her era.

The daughter of a German duke and a British princess, the wife of a king, and the mother of two more kings, Queen Mary is also the grandmother of Britain’s reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. May’s jewel collection is legendary, and this month I’m going to be spotlighting some of the rarer pieces from her jewel box. First up: one of her most elaborate choker necklaces, the Love Trophy Collar.

The necklace was made by Garrard in 1901 using diamonds taken from pieces of jewelry owned by May’s grandmother (Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel, later the Duchess of Cambridge) and her aunt (Princess Augusta of Cambridge, later the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz). Those gemstones were set in gold in a necklace that Hugh Roberts describes as a “delicately constructed collar, in the Louis XVI style.” In the photograph above, the collar is the top necklace of the two she wears. (She’s also apparently wearing the dress she wore for the coronation of her parents-in-law in 1902; however, this photograph was taken in 1905. She wore different jewels for that coronation, including the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara and a different choker necklace.)

Queen Mary wearing the necklace [2]

This particular choker is made up of a series of rectangular panels linked together by vertical rows of diamonds. Each “panel” of the Love Trophy necklace features a specific set of symbolic design elements; you can see one panel head-on in the detail of the photograph above. The center of the panels features an “amatory trophy” (hence the name of the piece): a burning torch and a quiver of arrows crossed with an archer’s bow, with clear references to Cupid, the god of love. This “love trophy” is surrounded by a wreath of laurel and suspended from a diamond ribbon tied in a bow.

Roberts notes that necklaces like this choker fell out of fashion rather quickly after May had it made. She passed the necklace along to her daughter-in-law, Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), while Elizabeth was still the Duchess of York. Even so, Elizabeth never wore the piece much, and I’ve never seen a photograph of her wearing it in public at all. In 2002, the necklace was inherited by the current Queen, but she hasn’t worn it in public yet either. (And, given her taste in jewelry, I’d be surprised if she ever does.)

It’s sort of a cliche these days to imagine how heirloom royal jewelry would look on the most popular young royal lady out there, the current Duchess of Cambridge, but I really think she might be the one most likely to pull this piece off. She’s tall, she has a long neck, and she favors unfussy fashions that would not compete for the spotlight with an elaborate necklace like this. The Queen has shown that she’s willing to let her granddaughter-in-law wear important pieces of royal jewelry out and about (think of her appearances in the Papyrus Tiara and the Nizam of Hyderabad Necklace). Perhaps the Love Trophy Collar might reappear someday soon on her, too?

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS

1. Photograph in the public domain due to age; source here. The web source dates the image to 1902; however, Hugh Roberts dates a photograph from the same sitting to 1905 in The Queen’s Diamonds.

2. Cropped version of a photograph in the public domain due to age; source here.

As a a reigning queen, Margrethe II of Denmark has access to a wide array of jewels, ranging from pieces that are a part of the nation’s crown jewel collections to items of personal jewelry. Today, we’re going to have a look at a little mini collection that belongs to the queen: her turquoise jewelry.

Margrethe has two sets of turquoise and diamond jewelry: an older suite and a more modern one. The older jewels were apparently inherited by Margrethe from her mother. The set includes a pair of diamond earrings with turquoise pendant stones, a large brooch (really, almost a small stomacher) that features three large turquoises set in diamonds, a smaller brooch, and a small bandeau tiara. The queen has also worn parts of the large brooch as a pendant on a diamond necklace (seen above at one of the events celebrating the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria in 2010).

The tiara’s design includes small turquoise and diamond flowers with petals, often identified as daisies (though sometimes also referred to as other flowers). The daisy motif makes a lot of sense to me, though — especially when you consider that the tiara is often said to have been a part of the jewelry collection of Margrethe’s maternal grandmother, Crown Princess Margareta of Sweden. Both grandmother and granddaughter share the nickname “Daisy,” and there are other pieces of jewelry in Margarethe’s collection that are linked with her mother and her grandmother. (The most notable is, of course, the daisy brooch we talked about recently.)

I’ve seen some speculation that the turquoise bandeau may have been a gift to Crown Princess Margareta from her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught. I’ve also seen it speculated that the turquoises in this older set may be Russian in origin and could even have been owned by members of the imperial family. (I’m not sure that either of these pieces of information is completely accurate, so I’d appreciate confirmation or refutation if you can offer it!) I’ve also never seen a reliable reference to the tiara’s maker, though I personally think it bears a significant resemblance to the daisy bandeau worn by Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway.

Regardless, we do know that the tiara was worn in a portrait by Margrethe’s mother, Ingrid, when she was a Swedish princess. That portrait has been a source of some confusion; although Ingrid wears a veil, she is wearing Swedish court dress, not her wedding gown. She did not wear a tiara at her wedding. We also know that Margrethe began wearing the piece way back in the 1960s (including an important outing during the pre-wedding celebrations for her sister, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece), though she has only started to wear it regularly for events like state banquets within the past decade.

The tiara has also been lent to others on various occasions. It was worn by Crown Princess Martha of Norway (mother of the current king) at the wedding of her sister, Astrid, to King Leopold III of Belgium in 1926. On that occasion, it must have been Martha’s cousin, Ingrid, doing the lending. In later years, the tiara has been worn by Madeleine Tengbom (maternal grandmother of Prince Richard of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, the husband of Princess Benedikte of Denmark) at her grandson’s wedding [1], and by Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark at her aunt Margrethe’s Ruby Jubilee in 2012.

Margrethe also has the turquoise and diamond Devonshire Brooch in her personal collection. This piece, which features a large turquoise surrounded by four diamonds, was a wedding gift in 1905 to Crown Princess Margareta from the Duchess of Devonshire.

One of the newer turquoise pieces in the queen’s collection is the large turquoise brooch made for her in 2000 by Torben Hardenberg. The brooch has a mythological motif in its design, which includes an image of Diana, goddess of the hunt, and a deer. The piece is made of three large turquoises (said to have come from the Danish royal family’s collection), gold, silver, and diamonds. Margrethe wears this brooch with a coordinating pair of modern turquoise and diamond earrings that have detachable pendant sections.

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Photos of Crown Princess Martha and Madeleine Tengbom wearing the tiara can be found here.

Queen Mary’s Love Trophy Collar

Queen Margrethe’s Turquoises