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This Week in Royal Jewels: May 2-8

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May 2-8, 2014
It’s Friday yet again, magpies — time for another round of the week’s best bejeweled news!

10. A new portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by photographer David Bailey was released on Thursday. The photo, which was taken as a part of the GREAT Britain campaign, features the Queen wearing the George VI sapphires, a nineteenth-century suite of diamond and sapphire jewelry given to her as a wedding present by her father.

9. Queen Sofia of Spain was on hand for the presentation of her nation’s paralympic sailing team on Thursday in Valencia, and her sailboat brooches were quite appropriate for the occasion.

8. At a concert in Amsterdam on Thursday, Queen Maxima surprised royal watchers by recycling a dress first worn decades earlier by her mother-in-law. She accessorized the already-bejeweled dress with bracelets and a pair of dangling earrings.

7. We all know that connections to royal wearers significantly increase the values of pieces of jewelry, but even so, this is kind of staggering: apparently the sapphire and diamond engagement ring worn by both Diana, Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Cambridge is now worth an estimated £300,000 — approximately ten times its original price.

6. To celebrate Princess Benedikte’s seventieth birthday, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark bestowed the Order of the Dannebrog on her sister. The order honors those who have made major contributions to the nation, and as Benedikte continues to carry out engagements (and even serve as regent) in Denmark, I’d say she certainly meets the qualifications. The order has eight grand commanders: Queen Margrethe, Prince Henrik, Crown Prince Frederik, Prince Joachim, (the former) King Constantine II of Greece, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, King Harald V of Norway, and now Princess Benedikte.

5. Although she normally prefers very low-key jewelry, the Princess of Asturias added an unexpected ornament to her hair for an audience at Zarzuela Palace on Thursday: a thin gilded headband.

4. The Countess of Wessex found a cuddly friend on a visit to Newbury this week. If you peek past Rosie the guinea pig, you’ll catch a glimpse of her Heavenly Necklaces snowflake pendant.

3. Queen Elizabeth II debuted an apparently new brooch this week in Essex. The piece appears to feature daffodils, which may suggest a connection to Wales; indeed, the only time it’s been spotted before was in a portrait of the Queen commissioned by the Welsh Rugby Union to mark the 60th anniversary of her coronation.

2. On Tuesday, Queen Maxima wore a questionable hat a beautiful pair of pearl pendant earrings during a regional tour of The Achterhoek.

1. Leave it to the Luxembourgish royals to give us our tiara of the week! Grand Duchess Maria Teresa brought out the family’s aquamarine set during a state visit to Poland.

On the Block: Royal Jewels at Sotheby’s

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Next month, a collection of jewelry will be going up for sale at Sotheby’s in Geneva that includes a number of items owned by royals. Here’s a rundown of some of the lots that may be of interest to all of you — including a couple of mysterious items with anonymous royal connections.
  • The Rosenborg Kokoshnik Tiara (Lot 450). After failing to sell at auction at Bukowski’s, the garnet, diamond, and pearl kokoshnik tiara that belongs to a junior noble branch of the Danish royal family is up for sale once more. The price of the tiara, which was made in the 1930s by Dragsted, has been significantly reduced from its last offering. The most recent wearer of the tiara was Countess Ruth of Rosenborg, who died in 2010. The family is descended from Prince Axel of Denmark (a grandson of King Christian IX) and Princess Margaretha of Sweden (the sister of Crown Princess Martha of Norway and Queen Astrid of Belgium).
  • The Pearls of the House of Orange (Lot 384). This necklace, made of pearls with a sapphire and diamond clasp, is being sold by Prince Eduard of Anhalt. The pearls belong to descendants of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange and his wife, Princess Amalia of Solms-Braunfels. The clasp of the necklace was reportedly added during the Napoleonic era.
  • The Staatholder Pearl (Lot 385). Also from the Anhalt collection, the natural pearl pendant on this necklace is another legacy from the House of Orange. It was worn by Henriette Catherine of Nassau at her wedding to Prince John George II of Anhalt-Dessau in 1659, and has been worn by family brides up to the 1960s. (Additionally, the Anhalts are also offering a diamond and Ceylon sapphire ring, dated to the 19th century, in the sale.)
  • The Dowager German Empress’s Pendant (Lot 382). This pearl and diamond pendant, which dates to the late 19th century, was part of the jewelry collection of Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, the second wife of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.
Along with these pieces, all of which advertise their royal provenance as a part of the auction notes, the sale also contains these pieces, being auctioned anonymously by royals:
  • A Diamond and Pearl Floral Brooch (Lot 326). Offered by “a member of a royal family.” The late 19th century brooch is described as “a floral spray brooch accented with natural pearls and pear-, cushion-shaped, circular-, single-cut and rose diamonds.”
  • A Synthetic Sapphire and Diamond Demi-Parure (Lot 325). Also offered by “a member of a royal family.” (Possibly the same royal, given the consecutive lot numbers?) The demi-parure consists of two pieces, a necklace and a bracelet, “composed of alternating pinched collet-set circular-cut synthetic sapphires and diamonds.” Additionally, the necklace has five detachable pendant drops.
  • A Yellow Diamond Demi-Parure (Lot 488). Part of “a royal private collection.” Made by Harry Winston, this demi-parure consists of four pieces: a necklace, earrings, a bracelet, and a ring. (Which, if you ask me, makes it a complete parure, but I’m not in charge of the lot notes at Sotheby’s.) Most of the diamonds are described as having a “yellow tint,” but the ring is set with a 16-carat fancy yellow pear-shaped diamond.
  • An Emerald and Diamond Parure (Lot 489). Also part of “a royal private collection” (surely the same one as the previous lot). The set includes a necklace, a ring, and earrings. The emerald set in the diamond necklace is a 53-carat Colombian emerald; the emeralds set in the ring and earrings are heart-shaped.
So, if you had a spare bundle of cash laying about, which one of these lots would you bid on? Are you surprised that some of these pieces are being auctioned? And — most importantly — which royals do you think are selling their bling anonymously???

Sisi’s Diamond Stars

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Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Winterhalter [1]
Among the tiaras, necklaces, and orders that make up the bulk of modern-day royal jewel collections, you’ll often find assorted sets of diamond stars. Sometimes they are worn on their own as brooches or hair ornaments; sometimes they’re affixed to tiaras or necklaces. The nineteenth-century fashion that led so many royal families to acquire these star ornaments can be traced to one influential source: Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known by her nickname, “Sisi.”
Sisi’s stars were made for her by Köchert, the imperial court jeweler. She ordered at least twenty-seven diamond and pearl stars from the jeweler herself [2]. Each of the stars is ten-pointed, and each features a single pearl set in the center of the design. Compared to the enormous, elaborate crown jewels of the period, these ornaments were small and probably seemed rather insignificant. But when Sisi posed for painted Franz Xaver Winterhalter in 1865 with the stars scattered throughout her famously lush hair, she started a fashion trend. Biographer Brigitte Hamann notes that Sisi also made a splash by appearing at various public events, including a court ball in Dresden for the wedding of her brother, wearing the glittering ornaments in her coiffure [3]. These public appearances, combined with the popularity of reproductions of the Winterhalter portrait, sent other European royals hunting for diamond star ornaments of their own.
Alexandra of Denmark, then Princess of
Wales, wears diamond stars on the
bodice of her gown [4]
Garrard supplied diamond star ornaments to Alexandra of Denmark, then Princess of Wales, across the channel in Britain. She often wore her diamond stars on the bodices of her gowns, as seen in the photograph on the right. She also used some of her stars on the diamond tiara that had been a wedding present from her husband [5]. Even more diamond stars were added to her collection in 1873, when an Indian shield was broken up by Garrard to produce the ornaments. Although Sisi is generally credited with launching the fashion for diamond stars, some think the trend might have died out had Alexandra not continued it [6].

A trove of diamond star ornaments is also found in the collection of the Dutch royal family. These stars were first owned by Queen Emma, who in 1879 received multiple sets as wedding gifts. The current generation of Dutch royal ladies wears the stars in various ways, but their most important outing in recent years was at the wedding of the current king and queen in 2002. Máxima used five of the ten-pointed diamond stars atop the base of the Pearl Button Tiara as her wedding diadem [7]

One of the most impressive examples of a nineteenth-century diamond star jewel is the Diadem of the Stars, which today is housed with the collection of crown jewels from the former royal family of Portugal. It was constructed for Queen Maria Pia of Portugal in 1863, at the time when Sisi’s stars were becoming a matter of public fascination [8]. It also features a coordinating necklace.

The Diadem of the Stars [9]
While diamond stars began to proliferate in collections across Europe, Empress Elisabeth made it a habit of giving her diamond and pearl stars away. Some were gifts to her ladies-in-waiting, while others stayed within the family. Only a few of Sisi’s jewels remain in Austria today, and in 1998, one of the Köchert stars was stolen from Schloss Schönbrunn. It was recovered in Winnipeg in 2007. [10]
NOTES, PHOTO SOURCES, AND LINKS
1. Detail of  Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s 1865 portrait of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
2. See “The World of the Habsburgs” for more.
3. See Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (2012).
4. Cropped version of a photograph in the public domain; source here.
5. This is the tiara often incorrectly referred to as the “Rundell” tiara; it was made by Garrard, not Rundell & Bridge. See A Tiara a Day and The Queen’s Diamonds (Roberts).
6. See Ursula’s website for more on these claims.
7. See John’s website for much more detailed information on the various diamond star sets owned by the Dutch royals.
8. See this post from A Tiara a Day for more information.
9. Cropped version of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
10. For much more on the theft and recovery of the diamond and pearl star, read here and here.