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The Queen Mother’s brooch collection was extensive, but toward the end of her life, she tended to wear mostly a few favorite pieces. One of them was today’s brooch, her modern floral diamond and emerald brooch.

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In The Queen’s Jewels, Leslie Field notes that the Queen Mother’s jewelry box includes “two large emerald and diamond brooches.” This brooch, which features a large faceted emerald surrounded by diamonds in a modern floral design, is presumed to be one of the two that Field mentioned. Like several of the Queen Mother’s favorite brooches, this diamond and emerald brooch also features a diamond chain with a pear-shaped diamond drop. Boffer describes the border of this brooch as being composed of “diamond set fleur-de-lys motifs.”

Many have speculated that this brooch was part of the massive Greville Bequest, a jewelry collection bequeathed to the Queen Mother by Mrs. Greville in 1942, but to my knowledge, we’ve never received confirmation of that provenance. (Please correct me in the comments if I’m wrong about that!) But Greville or not, the Queen Mum does seem to have worn the brooch for quite a long time. It’s possible that this brooch is the one mentioned in press reports just before the 1953 coronation, when the Queen Mother wore emeralds to attend a service at the Marlborough House chapel with her daughter and son-in-law: “The queen mother wore a dark mauve dress with diamond and emerald brooch at her left shoulder.”

The Queen Mum often paired this brooch with purple-hued clothing, as well as outfits in shades of green and pink. When worn on dark purple backgrounds, as in the moving image above from Prince Harry’s christening in December 1984, the emerald often photographs much darker, leading some to speculate that the Queen Mother owned an identical amethyst brooch. However, the GIF above shows the stone flashing green as she moves, making it clear that there’s only one brooch, and it’s set with an emerald.

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In the later years of her life, the emerald brooch became one of the Queen Mother’s most-worn jewels. In 1989, she wore the brooch during a visit to France commemorating the 45th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

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Here’s one more view of the brooch from that particular occasion, when the Queen Mum visited Bayeux Cathedral.

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The Queen Mother also chose the brooch for several birthday celebrations late in her life. For her 95th birthday in August 1995, she pinned the brooch to a pastel green and pink ensemble.

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For her 98th birthday celebrations in August 1998, she wore the brooch against an elegant ivory coat, a choice that made the details of the brooch show up vividly.

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Perhaps the most prominent appearance for the brooch came in the summer of 2000, when she wore the brooch for a pair of celebrations marking her 100th birthday. Above, she wears the brooch with a lightly-patterned pink ensemble at a birthday pageant held in her honor in Horse Guards Parade. Press reports described her attire for the event as “a pink dress and matching floppy hat, a three-strand pearl necklace and a large emerald and diamond brooch.”

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When the Queen Mother died in 2002, all of her jewelry, including this brooch, was inherited by her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. Many of those pieces were later designated for the long-term use of the Duchess of Cornwall, including this brooch. Above, Camilla wears the brooch for the dedication of the Armed Forces Memorial in Lichfield in October 2007.

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Our celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s 92nd birthday rolls on today with a look at one of her most sentimental brooches: the sweet basket of gem-studded flowers that she’s worn for seven decades.

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The flower basket brooch — which Leslie Field notes is an example of what is sometimes called a “giardinetti,” or “little garden” — was given to the Queen in 1948 by her parents. It was a present to mark the birth of her first child, Prince Charles, who also happened to be a future heir to the throne.

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The Queen, then still Princess Elizabeth, wore the brooch for Charles’s first official photograph. Although Elizabeth’s maternal joy is evident on her face, the black-and-white portrait doesn’t show off the true colorful joy of the brooch, as it’s set with diamonds as well as sapphires, rubies, and emeralds.

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Elizabeth made the brooch a regular part of her jewelry wardrobe in the years after Charles’s birth. Above, in October 1949, she wore the brooch during a visit to a council estate in Ilford.

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Two years later, in August 1951, she wore the brooch on her arrival at London Airport, before heading off for her annual holiday at Balmoral.

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Even after her accession, the brooch has remained a central part of HM’s jewel rotation, especially in recent years. Above, in June 2016, she wears the brooch for the opening of the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre. Although the various gems in the brooch mean that it coordinates well with lots of colors, the Queen tends to wear the brooch most often with clothing in different shades of blue.

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In 2013, she sentimentally chose the brooch for a very important family event: the christening of Prince Charles’s first grandchild, Prince George. The presence of the brooch at the christening provided a visual link between baby George with his great-great-grandparents, who would undoubtedly have been thrilled about the little future king (and his name)!

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And that Christmas, the Queen used the brooch in her annual Christmas message as a visual symbol of the succession — a brooch presented by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Queen Elizabeth II, in honor of the birth of the future King Charles III, then worn at the christening of the future King George VII, son of the future King William V. Whew!