royal brooch – Page 34

The Queen Mother’s Rock Crystal Brooch

03.18.2018 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

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Really good royal brooches stand the test of time — they look as good and as fresh when worn today as they did nearly a century ago. Today’s brooch, the Queen Mother’s Rock Crystal Brooch, fits that description perfectly.

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The brooch is made of translucent rock crystal carved with scroll designs. The jewel features a diamond centerpiece and diamond edging with black enamel detailing. This view from the side of the piece emphasizes the carved designs. Because the rock crystal is translucent, the brooch takes on the color of the fabric worn behind it, sometimes obscuring the delicate details of the piece.

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The piece has some Art Deco details, which fits with its probable construction date. The Queen Mother began wearing the brooch in the 1920s, most often as a hat ornament. Above, she wears the brooch on a cloche for engagements in Brisbane during the royal tour of Australia in April 1927.

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Today, the brooch is worn by the Duchess of Cornwall. Above, she wears the brooch during a trip to Poland in April 2008.

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One of Camilla’s most prominent outings in the brooch so far came in April 2009, when she wore it to the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Benedict. The translucent quality of the rock crystal is especially apparent when it’s worn against a dark color — on this occasion, black.

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The brooch has made several recent appearances, including an outing on Christmas Day at Sandringham. Above, Camilla wore the brooch in February 2018 for a visit to the Royal Academy of Dance in London.

The Irish Guards Brooch

03.11.2018 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

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With St. Patrick’s Day quickly approaching, it’s only right this weekend to turn our attention toward a British royal brooch with a major connection to the holiday: the Irish Guards Brooch.

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Although the brooch appears to be a smooth golden shamrock when viewed from a distance, close-up photography reveals that the brooch’s surface is textured. A single emerald is placed at the center of the shamrock. Various tales have been told about this brooch’s provenance over the years, but we seem to know for sure that it belongs to the Irish Guards and is loaned out to royal ladies who are associated with the regiment.

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For example, the Princess Royal wore the brooch on St. Patrick’s Day for several years when she handed out shamrocks to the regiment, as you can see in the image above from 2009.

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The brooch itself may date to 2000, when the regiment celebrated its hundredth birthday. That year, the Queen Mother, who presented shamrocks to the regiment on St. Patrick’s Day each year, also celebrated her hundredth birthday. It seems that the brooch may have been created (at least partly) in her honor. The Queen Mother appears to be wearing the brooch in the photograph above, taken in June 2000 at the Irish Guards Centenary service of thanksgiving and commemoration at the Guards Chapel in London.

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Since 2011, the Duchess of Cambridge has been the exclusive royal wearer of the brooch. (The Duke of Cambridge was made Colonel of the Irish Guards shortly before their royal wedding, and he wore the uniform of the regiment on their wedding day.) Her first appearance in the piece came in June 2011, when she attended a medal parade for the regiment at Victoria Barracks in Windsor.

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She also wears the brooch each year to present shamrocks to the regiment, following in the footsteps of Queen Alexandra, Princess Mary, the Queen Mother, and the Princess Royal. Above, you can see the brooch pinned to her lapel on St. Patrick’s Day 2012.

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And here’s how she wore the brooch on St. Patrick’s Day in 2017. That year, she paired the jewel with earrings made of gold and green onyx — a good pairing for the colors of the brooch.

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Kate has also worn the brooch for events related more broadly to Northern Ireland. In June 2016, she wore the shamrock brooch for a garden party at Hillsborough Castle during her visit with the Duke of Cambridge to Northern Ireland.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Aquamarine Clips

03.04.2018 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

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Combine a gorgeous, pale blue gemstone, the lovely aquamarine, and a classic brooch form, paired clips, and you get today’s royal brooch: the set of aquamarine clips that belong to Queen Elizabeth II.

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The clips have been in the Queen’s jewelry box since years before she took the throne. They were a birthday gift to the then-Princess Elizabeth in 1944 from her father, King George VI. The vibrant blue shade of the aquamarines is especially clear in this photo, taken at the Rambert Dance Company in London in May 2001.

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The blue gems also shone brightly during the Queen’s visit to Imperial College in London in June 2004. For years, many royal jewel writers (including me!) thought the clips were made by Cartier, as Leslie Field attributed them to that firm in The Queen’s Jewels. She described the brooches as a “typically 1940s design, combining baguette, oval, and round stones.”

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But when the clips were included in the summer 2006 exhibition of the Queen’s dresses and jewels at Buckingham Palace, a palace press release described them as “a pair of Boucheron aquamarine and diamond clip brooches given to Princess Elizabeth by her father, King George VI, for her 18th birthday.”

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The Queen has worn the clips connected as a single brooch, but she generally wears them as separate clips, sometimes placing them vertically, as she did aboard the HMS Endurance in June 2005, or staggered on her shoulder or collar.

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The clips remain a regular part of the Queen’s jewelry rotation today, including a prominent recent appearance during President Obama’s visit to London in 2016. I’d love to see the brooches worn as a single brooch again!