Our journey through the Spanish royal family’s grandest jewelry collection, the joyas de pasar, arrives today at a lovely section of the jewelry box: the joyas necklaces. Here’s a closer look at all three necklaces from Queen Ena’s important collection.

Queen Ena of Spain’s jewelry box housed a whole lot of necklaces, made of diamonds, pearls, and other gems. But in her will, she designated three necklaces in particular as part of the joyas de pasar collection, which was intended to pass directly from monarch to monarch.

The grandest and most recognizable of these necklaces is the diamond collet necklace, described in Ena’s will as “el collar de chatones más grande.” The necklace, which was worn by Ena in various lengths, was a wedding gift from her husband, King Alfonso XIII. Above, she wears the long diamond necklace with a shorter necklace made of emeralds inherited from Empress Eugenie of France. (You’ll also recognize two more pieces from the joyas collection in the portrait: the tiara and the earrings.)

Queen Ena also paired the diamond necklace with other suites of jewelry. Here, she wears it with her turquoise parure. The joyas necklace lines the bodice of her gown, which was designed by Worth. (She’s also wearing the joyas diamond earrings.) The length of the necklace changed various times during Ena’s tenure as its owner, and it has also changed in subsequent years, making it seem likely that collets can easily be removed from or added to the piece to alter the length.

Queen Sofia of Spain began wearing the necklace a few years into the reign of her husband, King Juan Carlos. (Why did she wait? It’s explained over here.) Above, she wears the necklace at the wedding of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark in May 2004. She also wears Queen Ena’s Pearl and Diamond Tiara, plus the joyas earrings and bracelets.

In June 2014, just before King Juan Carlos’s abdication, Queen Sofia wore the necklace for the final time. The occasion was a state banquet in Madrid in honor of the President of Mexico. She wore the necklace with several other joyas pieces: the tiara, the diamond earrings, and the diamond bracelets.

Though King Felipe and Queen Letizia inherited the joyas de pasar when he became monarch in 2014, she waited more than five years to wear the diamond necklace from the set in public. Her first outing in the piece came in October 2019, when she wore it for the enthronement of Emperor Naruhito of Japan in Tokyo. The necklace appeared to have been substantially shortened, and some of the extra collets used to make a matching bracelet. Along with the diamonds, she also wore Queen Sofia’s emerald earrings.

Along with the diamond necklace, the joyas de pasar collection also includes two pearl necklaces. The first is described in Ena’s will as “cuatro hilos de perlas grandes,” or four strands of large pearls. Queen Ena’s jewelry box was packed with pearl necklaces, and it’s never been clear to me precisely which four-stranded pearl necklace belongs to the joyas grouping. For example, she wears a four-stranded pearl necklace in the photo above, taken in 1912, but the pearls in the piece could hardly be described as “grandes.” I suspect that this four-stranded pearl necklace, worn with several other joyas pieces for a 1956 Life Magazine portrait, may be the actual necklace in question.

The third necklace from the collection is described much more precisely: “el collar con treinta y siete perlas grandes,” or a necklace made of 37 large pearls. This was another wedding present from King Alfonso XIII to Queen Ena. I believe this is the necklace she is wearing in the 1910 portrait painted by de László.

Pearl necklaces can be notoriously difficult to tell apart, but the size and precise length of this necklace makes it a little easier to identify. Above, Queen Sofia wears the necklace for Pope Benedict XVI’s inaugural mass in April 2005.

Sofia often wore the necklace with another piece from the joyas collection: the pearl drop known as La Peregrina II. (Queen Ena confused the pearl with the real La Peregrina — more on that over here.) Though the pearl drop was part of a brooch in Queen Ena’s day, Queen Sofia has almost always worn it as a pendant on a necklace — quite often using it with the 37 Pearl Necklace. Above, she wears the two pieces together, along with pearl drop earrings, a diamond bow brooch, and the Mellerio Shell Tiara, during a gala dinner for the President of Mexico in October 2001.

And here, Queen Sofia wears the necklace with the pendant during the state visit to Japan in November 2008. She’s also wearing pearl drop earrings and, of course, La Buena.

In October 2018, Queen Letizia wore the 37 Pearl Necklace for the first time (without La Peregrina II) for an official dinner in Madrid in honor of the President of Germany. You’ll note that she wore the necklace with the diamond clasp deliberately showing, placing the largest pearls off to one side. In fact, the only pieces from the joyas collection that’s she’s still not worn are La Peregrina II and the four-strand pearl necklace!

 

Next up in our week-long series on the Spanish joyas de pasar: the gorgeous diamond cluster earrings! Here’s a closer look at this dazzling part of the collection.

As we’ve discussed in our posts this week on the Fleur-de-Lis Tiara and the Diamond Bracelets, the joyas de pasar are a collection of jewels that Queen Ena designated in her will to pass from monarch to monarch. In the will, these earrings are described as “un par de pendientes con un brillante grueso y brillantes alrededor” (a pair of earrings with a large diamond with a diamond border). Queen Ena received the earrings from her husband, King Alfonso XIII, as a wedding gift in 1906, and she wore them throughout his reign and, afterward, in exile.

The next Queen of Spain to wear the earrings was Queen Ena’s granddaughter-in-law, Queen Sofia. She wore the earrings mainly for gala occasions, including state banquets and royal weddings. Above, she wears them in June 2014 for the final state banquet of King Juan Carlos’s reign. (She’s also wearing the tiara and diamond necklace from the joyas collection in this photo.)

She also loaned the earrings to her daughter, Infanta Cristina, for her wedding. Cristina wore them with the Spanish Floral Tiara on her wedding day in 1997.

The collection passed to King Felipe and Queen Letizia when King Juan Carlos abdicated in June 2014. Even so, Queen Letizia waited almost three years to wear the jewels in public. She debuted the tiara, the earrings, and the bracelets at the Argentine state banquet in Madrid in February 2017.

A few months later, in July 2017, Queen Letizia made a splash in the joyas tiara, earrings, and bracelet at a state banquet at Buckingham Palace during the couple’s state visit to the United Kingdom.

Letizia has worn the earrings both with and without tiaras from the royal vaults. She let the earrings take center stage in November 2017 at the return dinner during the Israeli state visit to Madrid.

She’s also worn the earrings for two more significant tiara debut moments. In April 2018, she paired them with Queen Ena’s Pearl and Diamond Tiara for the Portuguese state banquet in Madrid…

…and in November 2018, she wore them with Queen Maria Cristina’s Diamond Loop Tiara for a banquet in Madrid in honor of the President of China.

The earrings added some extra meaningful sparkle for an important recent daytime event: the Order of the Garter service at Windsor Castle in June 2019. Queen Letizia attended the event with King Felipe, who was invested as a member of the chivalric order.

One of her most recent appearances in the earrings came in October 2019, when she wore them with La Buena during the enthronement celebrations for Emperor Naruhito of Japan.

And she repeated the same tiara and earrings for a gorgeous set of formal portraits released in February 2020. I expect we’ll see the gorgeous, impressive earrings on Queen Letizia for important occasions for the rest of her husband’s reign.

 

Our week-long series on the joyas de pasar, the jewels passed down from monarch to monarch in Spain, continues today with a closer look at Queen Letizia’s favorite part of the set: the diamond bracelets.

Like the rest of the joyas de pasar (which essentially means “jewels that are passed down”), the diamond bracelets originally belonged to Queen Ena of Spain. When Ena made her will in 1963, she included a codicil specifically designating the bracelets as part of a collection of jewels that would be passed from monarch to monarch. In the text, these bracelets are described as “dos pulseras iguales de brillantes” (two matching diamond bracelets). In the image above, you’ll note that the bracelets are indeed matched and feature ribbon-like designs.

When Queen Ena died in 1969, the bracelets (and the rest of the joyas) were passed to her son, the Count of Barcelona. He never became king — it’s complicated — but his son became King Juan Carlos I in 1975. The Count of Barcelona renounced his right to the throne two years later, and only then did the joyas de pasar appear on Juan Carlos’s wife, Queen Sofia. She generally wore the bracelets together, with one on each wrist. Above, she wears them with Queen Ena’s Pearl and Diamond Tiara (plus the joyas de pasar diamond necklace and earrings) at the Danish royal wedding in May 2004.

She wore the bracelets again (with one on each wrist) at the Swedish royal wedding in June 2010, pairing them this time with pearls and the Mellerio Shell Tiara.

Queen Sofia’s final appearance in the bracelets (again, worn one on each wrist) came at the Mexican state banquet in Madrid in June 2014, the final gala celebration of her husband’s reign. She wore numerous pieces from the joyas collection on that occasion, including the Fleur-de-Lis Tiara and the diamond necklace and earrings.

King Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of his son, King Felipe VI, later the same month. The joyas bracelets subsequently became part of the new monarch’s collection, worn by his wife, Queen Letizia. She took her time with the jewels, not debuting them in public for several years after becoming queen. Her first appearance in the bracelets, I believe, came in February 2017, at a state banquet in Madrid in honor of the President of Argentina. She also wore the Fleur-de-Lis Tiara and the diamond earrings for the first time on this occasion.

Since then, the bracelets have become some of Queen Letizia’s most frequently worn royal jewels. She’s chosen them for numerous gala occasions. In Tokyo in April 2017, she wore the bracelets stacked together on her left wrist for a banquet at the Imperial Palace, pairing them with the Spanish Floral Tiara and diamond and sapphire earrings.

In July 2017, Queen Letizia wore the bracelets twice during the couple’s state visit to the United Kingdom. She wore one of the bracelets on her left wrist with the Fleur-de-Lis Tiara and the joyas diamond earrings for a state banquet at Buckingham Palace…

…and the following evening, she wore them stacked together on her left wrist with the Spanish Floral Tiara and diamond and sapphire statement earrings for a banquet at the Guildhall in London. (The small fleur-de-lis brooch on her sash, which appears in several of these images, comes from her own tiara.)

She wore the bracelets stacked together on her left wrist once again (with the Spanish Floral Tiara and Queen Sofia’s long pearl drop earrings) in Madrid in November 2017, when the royals hosted a banquet for the President of Israel.

In November 2018, she used the bracelets twice during the Chinese state visit to Madrid. For the gala banquet, she wore them stacked on her right wrist, pairing them with the joyas diamond earrings and Queen Maria Cristina’s Diamond Loop Tiara.

For dinner the next day, she wore one of the bracelets on her left wrist with less formal attire (and her Bulgari aquamarine earrings).

In February 2019, she wore one of the bracelets on her right wrist (plus the Spanish Floral Tiara and her diamond wedding earrings) during a banquet in Madrid in honor of the President of Peru.

Though Queen Sofia tended to reserve the bracelets only for formal occasions, Queen Letizia has worn them for other evening events as well. In November 2017, she wore them with the joyas diamond earrings for a meeting with the President of Mexico in Mexico City.

They’ve also made appearances at the annual Princess of Asturias Awards celebrations. In October 2017, she wore them with her blue topaz girandole earrings…

…and in October 2018, she paired them with the joyas diamond earrings for the same event.

The bracelets have also added a bit of dramatic bling to Queen Letizia’s evening ensembles on other occasions. In November 2018, she wore them for an event at the Palau de Les Arts in Valencia, pairing them with black diamond earrings.

She also wore them with the same earrings for a night at the opera in Madrid in September 2019.

Most recently, we saw the bracelets on Queen Letizia in a series of formal portraits published in February 2020. In these images, she wears the bracelets stacked on her left wrist, plus the Fleur-de-Lis Tiara and the joyas diamond earrings.