Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World
One of the more unusual floral tiaras in any royal collection, the Queen Mother’s Strathmore Rose Tiara is a piece that remains in the Windsor vaults but hasn’t been seen in public in years. Part of the reason for the tiara’s disappearing act may actually be connected not only with its large flowers but also with its early twentieth-century roots.
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| JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images |
Today’s tiara, a modest diadem that has since been lost, isn’t the showiest or sparkliest ornament around — but it has a major backstory. Here’s a taste of the history behind Princess Christina’s Diamond and Pearl Tiara.
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| Queen Sofia (Grand Ladies Site) |
The tiara, which was made by Ribbhagen, was once owned by Queen Sofia of Sweden and Norway, the wife of King Oscar II. I’ve never seen a photograph or portrait of Sofia wearing the little tiara, which is set with teeny diamonds and pearls, but she usually wore her grander jewels for regal portraits. Even queens and princesses need smaller tiaras to alternate with their enormous diamond sparklers. Can’t you imagine what a relief it must have been to wear this little tiara after balancing the Braganza Tiara on your brow?
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| Ebba Munck, lady-in-waiting turned royal spouse (Wikimedia Commons) |
Oscar and Sofia had four sons, one of whom became King Gustav V. But another of their sons had a star-crossed romance: Prince Oscar, the second eldest, fell in love with Ebba Munck, one of the ladies-in-waiting at the Swedish court. She lost her job, and the family made Oscar wait two years before he could marry her, hoping the romance would cool off. It didn’t; he lost his title, but he was eventually given permission to marry Ebba. The marriage was a success, and the couple had five children. At some point, Oscar and Ebba also received this tiara. I think it’s likely that Oscar inherited it from his mother when she died in 1913. (Sofia had been supportive of the marriage between Oscar and Ebba — she attended their wedding, while the king did not.)
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| Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images |
Eventually, the tiara passed to Oscar and Ebba’s third daughter, Elsa. She married a commoner, Hugo Cedergren, but she retained close ties to her royal cousins. She was a godmother of Princess Christina, and she eventually gave Queen Sofia’s tiara to her goddaughter. Above, twenty-one-year-old Christina wears her godmother’s tiara at the Nobel Prize ceremony in December 1964.
Even after she married a commoner, Tord Magnuson, and lost her HRH status, Princess Christina continued to wear the tiara at royal events. She paired the small sparkler with pearls for the King’s Dinner during the Nobel Prize festivities in 1974.
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| OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images |
The small tiara was placed on an unusually tall base, so that it would could be seen in Christina’s voluminous hair. Here, at the 2008 Nobels, she wears the tiara tilted slightly backward, almost like a jeweled headband.
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| HENRIK MONTGOMERY/AFP/Getty Images |
The tiara continued to be a staple in Christina’s jewel collection until 2012. That year, a family friend of the Magnusons stole the tiara and other pieces of jewelry from the safe in their apartment. According to police reports, the thief sold several valuable family pieces to drug dealers, but he threw the tiara off a Stockholm bridge. Divers searched for the tiara, but to no avail. A tiny, sparkly piece of Bernadotte history has sadly disappeared, perhaps permanently swallowed up in the sea.
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| Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark wears her mother’s diamond fringe tiara, ca. 1910 |
Lots of royal families have diamond fringe tiaras in their jewelry collections, but how many still own fringes that come directly from their Romanov ancestors? Today we’re chatting about one of the fringe tiaras that remains with its original family: the Vladimir Fringe Tiara.
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| Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna wears the tiara |
The original owner of the fringe tiara was Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, the German-born wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. The Vladimirs never ascended to the Russian throne, but they were extremely well connected: Vladimir was the son of Tsar Alexander II, the brother of Tsar Alexander III, and the uncle of Tsar Nicholas II. Appropriately, his wife had an astonishing collection of jewelry, including the standard diamond fringe owned by nearly every Romanov woman. Above, Maria Pavlovna, in traditional Russian court dress, wears hers backed by a fabric kokoshnik.
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| Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna wears her diamond fringe |
Maria Pavlovna, who went by the nickname “Miechen,” was also known to innovate and experiment with her jewels. Above, she wears her diamond fringe twisted in a circle, forming a sort of sunray ornament. This setting of the fringe emphasizes the short height of the smaller fringe pieces, a detail that helps when identifying the tiara in various photos.
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| Princess Nicholas wears her mother’s fringe tiara (Wikimedia Commons) |
Vladimir and Miechen had one daughter, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna; she was the next owner and wearer of her mother’s diamond fringe tiara. The portrait above was taken at some point after her marriage to Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark. Miechen was one of the Romanovs who escaped Russia during the revolution, and some of her jewels made it out, too. (One her tiaras was smuggled out of Russia by a British diplomat and was later purchased by Queen Mary; it’s currently worn by Mary’s granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.)
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| Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent wears the tiara on her wedding day (Wikimedia Commons) |
Two of Elena’s daughters honored their Russian imperial heritage by wearing the fringe as a wedding tiara. Princess Marina, who married the Duke of Kent in November 1934, wore the fringe for her two wedding services: an Anglican service at Westminster Abbey and a Greek Orthodox service at the private chapel in Buckingham Palace. Marina also received a fringe tiara as one of her wedding presents, but she borrowed her mother’s fringe tiara for her bridal diadem. The short spikes, which make the lower half of the Vladimir Fringe look so solid, help differentiate the two fringes.
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| Princess Elizabeth,Countess of Törring-Jettenbach wears the tiara (Wikimedia Commons) |
A few months earlier, Marina’s elder sister, Princess Elizabeth, also wore the Vladimir Fringe for her wedding to Count Carl Theodor of Törring-Jettenbach, a member of the extended Bavarian royal family. Both Marina and Elizabeth paired the fringe tiara with a simple diamond riviere necklace.
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| Princess Elizabeth,Countess of Törring-Jettenbach wears the tiara (Wikimedia Commons) |
Elizabeth is the one who inherited the fringe tiara from her mother, and her descendants still have it today. In Elizabeth’s branch of the family, the tiara has continued to serve as a wedding tiara. Elizabeth’s daughter Helene wore the tiara when she married Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in 1956, and their daughter, Sophie, also wore the tiara when she married Mariano Hugo, Prince of Windisch-Graetz in 1990. The tiara was used most recently at a family wedding in 2005, when Elizabeth’s grandson, Archduke Maximilian, married Maya al-Askari.