Sweden – Page 208

Queen Margrethe’s Turquoises

04.22.2014 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

As a a reigning queen, Margrethe II of Denmark has access to a wide array of jewels, ranging from pieces that are a part of the nation’s crown jewel collections to items of personal jewelry. Today, we’re going to have a look at a little mini collection that belongs to the queen: her turquoise jewelry.

Margrethe has two sets of turquoise and diamond jewelry: an older suite and a more modern one. The older jewels were apparently inherited by Margrethe from her mother. The set includes a pair of diamond earrings with turquoise pendant stones, a large brooch (really, almost a small stomacher) that features three large turquoises set in diamonds, a smaller brooch, and a small bandeau tiara. The queen has also worn parts of the large brooch as a pendant on a diamond necklace (seen above at one of the events celebrating the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria in 2010).

The tiara’s design includes small turquoise and diamond flowers with petals, often identified as daisies (though sometimes also referred to as other flowers). The daisy motif makes a lot of sense to me, though — especially when you consider that the tiara is often said to have been a part of the jewelry collection of Margrethe’s maternal grandmother, Crown Princess Margareta of Sweden. Both grandmother and granddaughter share the nickname “Daisy,” and there are other pieces of jewelry in Margarethe’s collection that are linked with her mother and her grandmother. (The most notable is, of course, the daisy brooch we talked about recently.)

I’ve seen some speculation that the turquoise bandeau may have been a gift to Crown Princess Margareta from her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught. I’ve also seen it speculated that the turquoises in this older set may be Russian in origin and could even have been owned by members of the imperial family. (I’m not sure that either of these pieces of information is completely accurate, so I’d appreciate confirmation or refutation if you can offer it!) I’ve also never seen a reliable reference to the tiara’s maker, though I personally think it bears a significant resemblance to the daisy bandeau worn by Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway.

Regardless, we do know that the tiara was worn in a portrait by Margrethe’s mother, Ingrid, when she was a Swedish princess. That portrait has been a source of some confusion; although Ingrid wears a veil, she is wearing Swedish court dress, not her wedding gown. She did not wear a tiara at her wedding. We also know that Margrethe began wearing the piece way back in the 1960s (including an important outing during the pre-wedding celebrations for her sister, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece), though she has only started to wear it regularly for events like state banquets within the past decade.

The tiara has also been lent to others on various occasions. It was worn by Crown Princess Martha of Norway (mother of the current king) at the wedding of her sister, Astrid, to King Leopold III of Belgium in 1926. On that occasion, it must have been Martha’s cousin, Ingrid, doing the lending. In later years, the tiara has been worn by Madeleine Tengbom (maternal grandmother of Prince Richard of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, the husband of Princess Benedikte of Denmark) at her grandson’s wedding [1], and by Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark at her aunt Margrethe’s Ruby Jubilee in 2012.

Margrethe also has the turquoise and diamond Devonshire Brooch in her personal collection. This piece, which features a large turquoise surrounded by four diamonds, was a wedding gift in 1905 to Crown Princess Margareta from the Duchess of Devonshire.

One of the newer turquoise pieces in the queen’s collection is the large turquoise brooch made for her in 2000 by Torben Hardenberg. The brooch has a mythological motif in its design, which includes an image of Diana, goddess of the hunt, and a deer. The piece is made of three large turquoises (said to have come from the Danish royal family’s collection), gold, silver, and diamonds. Margrethe wears this brooch with a coordinating pair of modern turquoise and diamond earrings that have detachable pendant sections.

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Photos of Crown Princess Martha and Madeleine Tengbom wearing the tiara can be found here.

Queen Margrethe’s Daisy Brooch

04.10.2014 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Queen Margrethe II wearing the diamond daisy brooch [1]

Queen Margrethe is one of the royals who attaches great sentimental meaning to the pieces of jewelry that she wears. She knows the history of her collection and, as the De Kongelige Juveler documentary demonstrates, she can easily recall the stories behind each item in it. Today’s piece, her daisy brooch, is one of the most sentimental of her jewels, with connections to her mother and her maternal grandmother.

In 1935, Princess Ingrid of Sweden, the only daughter of the Swedish crown prince, became engaged to Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. Ingrid’s mother, Margareta, had died fifteen years earlier, when Ingrid was only ten. Margareta had a stellar royal background of her own; born Princess Margaret of Connaught, she was descended from the British and Prussian royal families. She also had major jewelry — we discussed several of her pieces here on the blog in January.

The daisy brooch [2]

As you might expect, Ingrid remembered her mother in multiple ways at her wedding, which took place in Stockholm. She wore her mother’s wedding veil, a piece of delicate Irish lace that has also been worn by family brides in the generations since. She also had a rather large diamond brooch pinned to her wedding gown. The piece, which was made in the shape of a daisy, was one of Ingrid’s wedding gifts. Her father, Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, had the brooch made for his daughter using diamonds that had belonged to her late mother. After her wedding, she also wore the brooch on her arrival in her new country, Denmark.

The diamonds alone would be a lovely sentimental connection to the late Swedish crown princess, but the shape of the brooch was another tribute to Margareta. The French version of her name, Marguerite, is also the name of a specific kind of daisy. The late princess was always called “Daisy” by her family, and so the brooch’s design was another tribute to Ingrid’s mother. Ingrid would go on to name her first child “Margrethe,” and like her grandmother, the current Danish queen is nicknamed “Daisy.”

As you might expect, Ingrid treasured the brooch. She wore it on major occasions throughout her life, including her seventieth birthday celebrations in 1980 (pictured above with her daughters, their spouses, and her grandchildren — can you name them all?). In June 1967, she lent the brooch to Margrethe to wear on her wedding day. Margrethe followed in her mother’s footsteps by pinning the brooch to the bodice of her wedding gown.

Shortly before her death, Queen Ingrid gave the daisy brooch to Queen Margrethe as a birthday present. The queen’s emotions over the sentimental gift are clear in her interview for De Kongelige Juveler: “Ten years ago, when I was sixty, on my birthday, my mother had just turned ninety. She gave me the daisy brooch, which I must say, I was extremely touched, to be given it like that. Well, it’s a brooch which means a great lot to me, first because it was my mother’s, and then again because I wore it for my wedding, and then I was given it the way I was given it like that, when I was sixty. That was very special” [3]. Since receiving the brooch, Margrethe has worn it at important events, including the celebration of her seventieth birthday in 2010 (pictured above). It’s clearly one of her most treasured items.

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped still from a YouTube video; source here.
2. Cropped still from a YouTube video; source here.
3. As of the date of this posting, you can view the documentary here on YouTube.

Shamrocks and Clovers

03.13.2014 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Augusta Victoria of Germany’s clover coronet, ca. 1913 [1]

St. Patrick’s Day is nearly upon us — what better time to take a gander at royal jewels that feature shamrocks, clovers, and trefoils as a part of their design? We may not see many new pieces of royal jewelry today that incorporate these motifs, but the Victorians loved a good shamrock. And why not — the shamrock is not only used as a symbol of Ireland but also seen as a representative of the trinity and of other sacred trios. Here are a couple of my favorite pieces of jewelry that feature this lucky symbol.

The Prussian Clover Coronet

Augusta Victoria [2]

This striking clover diadem, pictured above and at left, was designed by a royal who wasn’t primarily known for his interest in the aesthetics of jewels: Kaiser Wilhelm II. He commissioned the coronet, which featured shamrock and clovers, from Koch in 1906 as a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary gift for his wife, Kaiserin Augusta Victoria. Dona was photographed in the piece; she also wore it in a portrait painted by Philip de László in 1908. After the family was exiled to the Netherlands in the aftermath of World War I, they managed to keep this piece in their collection. In the ensuing decades, however, the tiara was altered. In 1950, parts of the tiara were removed to create two additional tiaras. In its current form, the clover coronet is often featured in various museum exhibitions. (There’s a similar clover coronet in the collection of another branch of the German royal family; it was worn by Princess Birgitta of Sweden and Hohenzollern during her German marriage ceremony in 1961.)

The Shamrock Kokoshnik Tiara
For my money, one of the most charming kokoshniks out there is this tiara, which is made up of tiny shamrocks or trefoils. The piece also comes from the collection of the former imperial family of Germany. The tiara, which was made by Fabergé, can also be worn with three detachable elements to supplement the design. It was given as a wedding present to Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the wife of the last German crown prince, in 1905. Her daughter, also named Cecilie, wore it at her wedding to Texan architect Clyde Harris in 1949. Ursula’s site features additional pictures of the piece.

Chris Jackson/AFP/Getty Images

The Irish Guards Shamrock Brooch
When the Duchess of Cambridge makes a visit to the Irish Guards, she borrows a gold shamrock brooch from them to wear for the occasion. The piece has a teeny-tiny emerald set right in the center of the shamrock leaves, giving it a bit of glitter as well as shine. Kate has worn the brooch on three separate occasions so far (and likely will wear it again on Monday); in the past, the regiment has also loaned the brooch to the Queen Mum and to Princess Anne.

Countess of Flanders [4]

The Flanders Tiara
The Albion Art Institute in Tokyo today owns this trefoil-motif tiara, which once belonged to a member of the French imperial family. Napoleon’s adopted daughter, Stéphanie de Beauharnais, was probably the first owner of the piece, which is made of pearls and diamonds set in gold and silver. Her granddaughter, Princess Marie, married the Count of Flanders, a son of King Leopold I of Belgium; she’s the wearer who is most frequently associated with the tiara. Marie’s daughter inherited the tiara, but it eventually left the family altogether. Since it was acquired by Albion Art, it’s been included in a number of exhibitions all over the world, including the “Diamond Divas” exhibit in Belgium [3].

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS

1. Cropped version of an image in the public domain due to its age; source here.

2. Cropped version of a photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
3. Here’s an item on the Flanders tiara from the exhibition.
4. Cropped version of a photograph in the public domain; source here.