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Our royal brooch spotlight this weekend is shining on another grand brooch from the Duchess of Cornwall’s collection: this lovely golden bow with bright blue pendant drops.

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Camilla wore the brooch in public for the first time on April 29, 2005, only twenty days after her royal wedding in Windsor, during a visit to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Institute for Indian Art and Culture in London. This was a period when Camilla was debuting lots of royal jewelry, much of which came from the late Queen Mother’s personal collection. Many have suggested that this brooch, a stylized bow with an antique gold finish, is also a legacy from the Queen Mum.

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I think it’s very possible that the brooch did belong to the Queen Mum, even though I don’t have any firm evidence, photographic or otherwise, to back up that claim. One helpful thing, though, that may link her to the brooch is the embellishment on the brooch’s drops. One of the drops is decorated with the letter “E” in script…

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…and the other drop features the letter “E” in block form. The Queen Mother’s first name was Elizabeth, of course. (I initially saw the block letter as an “F,” but there’s definitely a third horizontal line extending from the base of the letter, so I believe it is an “E.”) Both drops are surmounted by crowns, not coronets, suggesting that the piece was definitely worn by a queen. So if the brooch did belong to the Queen Mother, it’s possible that it didn’t enter her collection until after December 1936. To me, the construction details of the piece in this close-up do suggest a 20th-century date for the brooch.

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I’ve seen the drops described as sapphires, but I don’t think that’s right. These don’t have the same appearance as polished sapphires; instead, the color of the drops looks to be slightly mottled and varied, more like lapis lazuli. The drops seem to be drilled beads, which would also account for the swiveling drop on the right in these photos, where the crown and the initial don’t align properly.

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Shortly after her first appearance in the brooch, Camilla wore it again in London in June 2005 for events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

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And she wore the brooch again in March 2006 during a royal tour of India. For a parade in Jaipur, Camilla paired the brooch with a jewel that definitely came from the Queen Mum’s jewelry box: the triple strand of pearls with the diamond deco clasp.

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Camilla has continued to wear the brooch throughout her marriage. One of her most recent appearances in the brooch came in March 2018, when she wore the piece to celebrate the Commonwealth Big Lunches event at the Barn Croft Primary School in Walthamstow.

Queen Elizabeth II wears the Dorset Bow Brooch at the Royal Film Performance, 27 October 1952 (Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

It’s difficult to think of a modern royal who has a collection of brooches as vast as the one that belongs to Queen Elizabeth II. While some see these small baubles as old-fashioned relics of the past, Elizabeth continues to wear brooches as a part of her daily uniform. She uses them to remember special occasions, to recognize history, and to acknowledge contributions. The brooches might not be very big, but they pack a major symbolic punch. Today’s brooch, the Dorset Bow Brooch, is one that has been in HM’s jewelry box for nearly seven decades.

The Duchess of York (later Queen Mary) attends the Devonshire House Ball, 2 July 1897

In 1893, Princess Mary of Teck wed the Duke of York. (We know them better today as King George V and Queen Mary; the Queen knew them as her paternal grandparents.) The County of Dorset offered a wedding present to the new duchess: a brooch made of diamonds set in gold and silver, designed in the shape of an elaborate bow. The piece was made by Carrington in the same year that it was given. You can see Mary wearing the brooch in the photo above, taken in 1897 at the Devonshire House Ball; the brooch is pinned at her waist.

The Dorset Bow Brooch is displayed at Buckingham Palace, 23 July 2015 (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Hugh Roberts notes in The Queen’s Diamonds that the bow brooch is very similar in design to one that once belonged to Empress Eugenie of France, a piece that was sold with the French crown jewels in 1887. Perhaps Carrington, the brooch’s maker, took inspiration from one of the auction documents that circulated around the time of the sale?

Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) wears the Dorset Bow Brooch for the wedding of Lady Caroline Montagu-Douglas-Scott and Ian Bedworth Gilmour at Westminster Abbey, 10 July 1951 (Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Although Queen Mary loved to tinker with her jewels, the Dorset brooch exists today just as it did when she received it in 1893. In 1947, the brooch was one of the jewels that Mary gave to her granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth, as a wedding present. A year later, Elizabeth wore the brooch at the christening of her eldest son, Prince Charles.

Queen Elizabeth II wears the Dorset Bow Brooch at Princess Anne’s wedding, 14 November 1973 (Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Elizabeth also wore the brooch at another important family occasion decades later: the wedding of her daughter, Princess Anne, in November 1973.

Queen Elizabeth II wears the Dorset Bow Brooch at the South Korean state banquet, 1 December 2004 (FIONA HANSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Since receiving it from her grandmother, the Queen has worn the brooch regularly. It’s one of the larger bow brooches in the Queen’s collection, but it’s still used for everyday wear as well as for white-tie events.

Queen Elizabeth II wears the Dorset Bow Brooch at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, 12 November 2006 (ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images)

The Queen also frequently wears it for one occasion in particular: Remembrance Sunday. She uses the brooch to gather the stems of the poppy flowers that she wears to honor Britain’s fallen soldiers.