Sweden – Page 209

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.

Jewelry 101: Kokoshnik

03.04.2014 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Kokshnik tiara worn by Marie Feodorovna of Russia [1]

Jewelry 101: Kokoshnik

This is the second installment of a series that provides information on various unusual terms associated with the world of royal jewelry. To catch up, visit our discussion of the term “parure” here.

Of all the questions I’m asked about royal jewels, and tiaras in particular, there are few I get as often as this one: what exactly is a kokoshnik? With so many kokoshniks in royal collections today, it’s a specialized term that gets used quite a bit.

Russian kokoshnik, ca. 1900 [2]

The word “kokoshnik” is translated from Russian. It originally referred to a headdress worn by married Russian women in certain parts of the country. These traditional kokoshniks varied a bit in size and shape. Some of them were gigantic — see the photograph at left — while some were smaller. In general, however, kokoshniks shared the same basic crescent shape. Many of them were secured at the back of the head by a ribbon.

Kokoshiks became popular in the world of royal jewels when the Romanov court began to wear them in the nineteenth century. Russian tsarinas and grand duchesses adapted the European fashion for tiaras, which had become fashionable at the court of Napoleon in France, to fit with these traditional Russian headdress shapes. In the hands of the Romanovs, the large kokoshnik headdresses that were a part of the traditional dress of many Russian peasants generally became smaller, crescent-shaped headpieces that resembled halos.

Grand Duchess Anastasia [3]

The Romanovs embellished their kokoshniks with jewels; sometimes they attached stiff fabric backings to tiaras to achieve the desired shape, and sometimes they had tiaras made that echoed the shape of kokoshniks, with no fabric needed to supplement the piece. In the detail of the portrait at the top of this post, you can see the way that a row of pearls was affixed to a diamond fringe tiara worn by Tsarina Marie Feodorovna in order to mimic the crescent shape of kokoshniks. Unmarried Russian grand duchesses, like the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, frequently wore simple fabric kokoshniks without major jewels, although they were sometimes adorned with pearls (see the photograph of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna at right). When wearing court dress, many grand duchesses supplemented their kokoshniks with veils.

The kokoshnik-style tiara became popular throughout Europe in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries in part because of the various family ties that the Romanovs had with members of other royal houses. Tsarina Marie Feodorovna’s sister, Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, requested a tiara shaped like one of her sister’s kokoshniks as an anniversary gift in 1888. That kokoshnik tiara, made of diamonds set in white and yellow gold, is still worn today by her great-granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II [4]. Other royal and noble families, including the Bernadottes in Sweden and the Rosenborgs in Denmark, also have kokoshnik tiaras that were inspired by those worn at the Romanov imperial court.

Olga of the Hellenes [5]

European tiara collections today still include many examples of kokoshnik-shaped tiaras, largely because so many grand duchesses married into various royal families. Queen Olga of the Hellenes, who was born Grand Duchess Olga Constaninovna of Russia, brought an emerald-studded kokoshnik (see the photograph at right) with her to her new country. Although the family has altered the tiara over the years, its current incarnation echoes its original kokoshnik shape. Many Russian grand duchesses received diamond fringe tiaras, which mimicked the shape of kokoshnik headdresses, as a part of their wedding trousseaux; you can see some of those fringe tiaras gracing the heads of their descendants today in countries like Denmark (inherited from Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna) and Germany (inherited via two Romanovs, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna). These halo-esque fringe tiaras were sometimes called tiaras russe because of their links to the Romanovs.

After the Russian revolution of 1917, kokoshnik tiaras were also frequently purchased from the Romanovs by other royals. Queen Marie of Romania bought an impressive Cartier sapphire and diamond kokoshnik tiara from her aunt, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (“the Elder”) of Russia; it stayed with the Romanian royals until Queen Marie’s daughter, Princess Ileana, sold it in exile in the 1950s. Alexander I of Yugoslavia bought a diamond and emerald kokoshnik for his new wife, Princess Maria of Romania, in 1922; it had originally been made for Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, one of the Romanovs who was murdered by the Bolsheviks, and was sold to the Yugoslavian king by her niece, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (“the Younger”).

So, to identify a kokoshnik tiara in the wild today, ask yourself a couple of simple questions. Is it shaped like a halo or a half-moon? Does it have a distinctively curved top? Is it associated with Russia, or was it Russian-inspired? If you can answer “yes” to any of those questions, it’s highly likely that you’re looking at a kokoshnik. Which royal kokoshnik tiaras are among your favorites?

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS

1. Detail of Ivan Kramskoi’s Portrait of Maria Fyodorovna (ca. 1880s); source here.
2. Photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
3. Photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
4. More on Queen Alexandra’s kokoshnik tiara can be found at the Royal Collection website.
5. Detail of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.