Netherlands – Page 92

King’s Day Jewels 2018

05.02.2018 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

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On Friday, members of the Dutch royal family gathered in Groningen for the annual King’s Day celebrations, and we’ve got some fun jewelry to admire.

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Queen Maxima chose a bright scarlet red ensemble this year, a perfect color to help her stand out in a large crowd.

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With a dress that reminds me a little bit of, well, red blood cells, she wore her sleek, diamond-encrusted hoop earrings.

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On her right wrist, she stacked her diamond initial bracelet with her ruby and sapphire tennis-style bracelets. She also wore her ruby and diamond ring, a gift from her husband on the birth of their first daughter, Princess Amalia.

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Here’s a view of Maxima’s entire ensemble for the day, including her bright red coat.

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King’s Day always gives us a chance to marvel at how grown-up the three Dutch princesses are. Isn’t the Princess of Orange stunningly beautiful in this shot? Amalia, who is heir to the Dutch throne, is fourteen.

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None of the three girls are wearing much jewelry yet, but here we’ve got a lovely picture of all of them: Alexia, Ariane, and Amalia.

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The princesses’ aunt, Princess Laurentien, did wear a bit of jewelry with her bright yellow motorcycle jacket for the festivities. In this image, you can see that her statement earrings and her cocktail ring appear to be set with similar stones.

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The King’s cousins and their wives were also on hand for the celebrations. Princess Marilene, wife of Prince Maurits, wore jacket-style earrings featuring floral designs and briolette drops.

Photograph © Netty Leistra. Do not reproduce.

My wonderful pal and fellow royal blogger Netty was able to go to Groningen for King’s Day this year, and she has graciously shared another great photo of Marilene’s earrings with us. Lovely!

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Princess Annette, wife of Prince Bernhard, also chose briolette drop earrings, but hers were in a vibrant shade of blue. The stud portion of Marilene’s and Annette’s earrings look very similar, and I wonder if they’re made by the same designer. (I checked Princess Margarita of Bourbon-Parma’s jewelry collection, but I couldn’t find anything similar there.)

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Princess Aimee, wife of Prince Floris, also dazzled in statement earrings. These large drops appear to be pave-set with diamonds.

Photograph © Netty Leistra. Do not reproduce.

Netty also shared this great photo of Floris and Aimee, and it gives us a look at Aimee’s stacked rings on her right hand.

King’s Day Concert Jewels

04.11.2018 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

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Queen Maxima and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands were among the members of the Dutch royal family who gathered in the Oosterpoort in Groningen on Monday for the annual King’s Day concert. Here’s a look at the jewels for the event.

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Maxima wore an unusual pair of statement earrings, shaped like seashells, for the concert.

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She paired the earrings with a very patterned dress, perhaps wisely keeping the rest of her accessories to a minimum. What else could possibly compete with this frock?

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Princess Beatrix went down a more traditional jewelry route, wearing pieces from her collection of sapphire jewels. Here you get a good look at her diamond and sapphire drop earrings, as well as her pearl necklace with the sapphire and diamond cluster clasp.

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She also wore a large sapphire ring on her left hand.

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Here’s a look at her entire ensemble. I believe I also spot her diamond engagement ring on her right hand.

Princess Louise’s Diamond and Pearl Drop Brooch

04.08.2018 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

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Our weekend look at some of the grandest brooches in royal jewelry boxes lands in Denmark today, where Queen Margrethe wears a magnificent diamond and pearl brooch that has been in Denmark’s royal vaults for several generations. Here’s how the diamond and pearl brooch that belonged to Queen Louise of Sweden ended up in Copenhagen.

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The brooch features a central diamond piece with scroll and floral elements, topped by a pearl and diamond button cluster. Five pear-shaped pearl pendants are suspended from the bottom of the brooch.

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In 1825, Princess Louise, daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, married Prince Frederick of the Netherlands. Among her wedding gifts was a pair of matched pearl and diamond jewels: a tiara with eighteen pear-shaped pearl pendants and the brooch we’re discussing today. Because the bride was a Prussian princess, some have speculated that both the tiara and brooch may have been made in present-day Germany, perhaps in Berlin. (You can read a lengthy post about the tiara here.) Louise wore both the tiara and the brooch in the portrait above, which was painted by Jean-Baptiste van der Hulst in 1836.

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Princess Louise passed her diamond and pearl brooch along to her daughter, also named Louise. In 1849, the younger Louise married Crown Prince Carl of Sweden, and the couple eventually became King Carl XV and Queen Louise of Sweden and Norway. Queen Louise was depicted wearing the diamond and pearl brooch in the portrait above, which was painted by Amalia Lindegren. She also eventually inherited her mother’s pearl drop tiara, but because very little time elapsed between their deaths, she never got to wear it.

Instead, the tiara and brooch were passed along to Queen Louise’s only surviving child, Princess Lovisa of Sweden. When Lovisa married Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark in 1869, she added additional pearl and diamond pieces to her personal collection, and she began wearing them all as a set (or a “married” parure, as the jewels coordinate, but were not made to match).

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Lovisa paired her mother’s pearl drop brooch and tiara with a pearl and diamond necklace given to her by the Khedive of Egypt. (Part of that necklace was later repurposed to create a matching set of earrings.) A pearl and diamond double cluster brooch, a gift from her Russian in-laws, Tsar Alexander III of Russia and his wife, Maria Feodorovna, rounded out the set. Frederik and Lovisa became King Frederik VIII and Queen Lovisa of Denmark in 1906, and the pearl drop brooch graced the gowns of a queen consort once more.

The set has become, in practice, reserved for the use of Denmark’s queens. Lovisa eventually passed the jewels along to her daughter-in-law, Queen Alexandrine, who wore them occasionally. When Alexandrine’s elder son became King Frederik IX in 1946, her daughter-in-law, Queen Ingrid, began wearing the pearl and diamond jewels, including the brooch. Above, Ingrid wears the pearl drop brooch pinned at the neckline of her gown at the wedding of Princess Ragnhild of Norway in May 1953.

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The brooch, along with the rest of the married parure, is now worn by Ingrid’s daughter, Queen Margrethe II. Above, she wears the brooch and jewels at the very beginning of her reign, for a dinner given at Amalienborg for the diplomatic corps in May 1973.

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Margrethe has continued wearing the suite throughout her reign, often in the same configuration. You’ll generally find the brooch pinned at the center of the neckline of her gowns, just as her mother wore it. Margrethe wore it in that position in June 2010 for one of the biggest royal events of a generation, the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden in Stockholm.

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But you’ll sometimes also see Margrethe wearing the brooch in other ways. She has occasionally used it as the centerpiece of a pearl necklace, and for the Belgian state visit to Denmark in March 2017, she used it to secure the sash of the Order of Leopold. Princess Louise’s brooch and tiara may not have been made to match all pieces of this married parure, but they continue to coordinate well with the rest of Queen Lovisa’s wedding pearls today.