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Victoria Melita’s Meander Kokoshnik

03.05.2014 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Victoria Melita of Edinburgh (as a Russian grand duchess) wearing her kokosnik, ca. 1913 [1]

We’ve flipped the calendar over to March, which means it’s time for a new Magpie of the Month here at the Court Jeweller! This month, I’ll be featuring jewels worn by Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria was a Grand Duchess of Hesse and a Grand Duchess of Russia during her lifetime. Let’s kick off the month by looking at one of her Russian tiaras, a piece that resides today with the former royal family of Romania.

Victoria Melita — who got her unusual middle name because she was born in Malta — was the third child of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (and later also Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; he was a son of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria) and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. The princess, who was called “Ducky” by her family, was married twice. Her first marriage to Prince Ernst of Hesse (her first cousin, and the brother of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna) was a disaster, and she had to wait until their mutual grandmother, Queen Victoria, died before she could divorce him. Tainted by the scandal, Ducky was a bit of an outcast in royal circles, but she ended up making another royal marriage, this time to a Romanov. Her 1905 wedding to yet another first cousin, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich — the son of Maria Pavlovna the Elder, owner of the famous Vladimir Tiara — caused further outrage, but the pair were in love. Unfortunately, their marriage wasn’t exactly an unqualified success either, but so goes the story of so many royal marriages from a century ago.

Today’s piece of jewelry, her meander tiara, is from the time of her second marriage. Befitting a Russian grand duchess, this tiara started off as a kokoshnik. (We talked yesterday about the definition of kokoshnik — head over that way if you need a refresher!) Look closely at the photo of Victoria Melita above; you can see the thinner bands of diamonds that mark the top of the kokoshnik shape. Those bands are set atop the fabric backing that is attached to the diamond meander, or “Greek key,” design. You can even see a bit of the ribbon used to secure the kokoshnik; it’s tied in a bow at the nape of Ducky’s neck. She’s wearing Russian court dress in the photograph, which is why you can also see a veil attached to the back of her headpiece.

Appropriately, the tiara is said to have been a present to Ducky from her Russian second husband, Grand Duke Kirill. But, sadly, we all know what happened to Russian royals in the early twentieth century, so it should come as no surprise that when Kirill and Ducky fled Russia after the revolution, she sold the tiara. Ducky didn’t have to look far for a buyer. Her sister, Queen Marie of Romania stepped in to acquire the tiara. Marie was something of a sure bet for her Romanov relatives looking to unload jewels in exchange for cash; she’d lost most of her jewelry during the war, and she was looking to buy replacement pieces just as the Romanovs were in need of funds.

Even so, Marie didn’t buy this piece for herself. Her son, Carol, was preparing to marry Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark, and a new Romanian crown princess needed a suitably grand tiara. The motif of the tiara was also especially well-suited for a bride from the Greek royal family; in ancient Greece, the meander was one of the most important cultural symbols, representing infinity. The Greek key tiara was altered, turned into a flexible bandeau, and given to the Greek princess, who wore it at her wedding in 1921. Helen frequently wore the bandeau low across her forehead, as so many ’20s princesses did with their tiaras. She also wore it suspended from bands that criss-crossed the top of her head.

Carol and Helen’s marriage was, sadly, just as disastrous as Ernst and Ducky’s had been a generation earlier. But their son, Michael, did end up reigning as Romanian king before finally being compelled to abdicate in 1947. Even though he lost his throne, his family was able to retain this tiara. His wife, Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma, wore the tiara to their wedding in 1948. Their daughter, Princess Maria, also wore the tiara at her wedding in 1995. Today, the piece is worn most frequently by Michael and Anne’s eldest daughter, Margarita. She often represents her father at European royal events, giving her plenty of opportunities to show off the family’s only remaining heirloom tiara.

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS

1. Cropped version of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; 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.

Saturday Sparkler: Queen Victoria’s Emerald and Diamond Tiara

03.01.2014 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Queen Victoria depicted in her emerald and diamond tiara, ca. 1846 [1]

Some of my favorite royal tiaras are the sparklers designed for Queen Victoria by her beloved Prince Albert. Today, let’s have a gander at the lovely little emerald and diamond tiara that he designed for his wife.

The piece was crafted by the jeweler Joseph Kitching based on plans drawn up by Albert. Kitching made the tiara in 1845 for around a thousand pounds. The tiara, which features a geometric base topped by large emeralds, has been identified as one of the queen’s favorite pieces of jewelry. Indeed, she was painted in it twice, most notably by Winterhalter in The Royal Family (1846). But unlike many British royal tiaras, the chain of ownership of this piece is incredibly tricky. The last statement on the current ownership of the tiara came in 2001, when it was photographed for Tiaras: A History of Splendour, the expansive book that accompanied Geoffrey Munn’s exhibit of tiaras at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Munn notes in the book that the tiara belongs to a descendant of Queen Victoria without offering the person’s name.

So who was that family member? And how did it get to that person? There are a few bits of evidence that we can piece together to try to establish the tiara’s journey. One of them is a notable omission. We know that it wasn’t a part of the 1896 inventory of the queen’s jewels made by Garrard, which has led some to claim that the tiara was given to a family member before that period. That inventory also omitted other pieces, including the sapphire coronet that now belongs to the Harewood family, so its exclusion from the list does not necessarily mean that Victoria gave the tiara away before 1896. But it’s a good place to start.

The tiara appears in a photograph of one of Victoria’s granddaughters, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, which was taken in the 1880s. But as Princess Victoria (who was the grandmother of the Duke of Edinburgh) is apparently dressed for a costume ball in the photograph, it’s possible that she was simply borrowing the piece. The links get even fuzzier when you consider that the most recent person to have been photographed in the tiara was from a completely different branch of Queen Victoria’s family: Caroline Worsley, who was the wife of the Duke of Fife when she wore the tiara to the State Opening of Parliament in 1960. (The couple divorced six years later, and Caroline has since remarried.) The current Duke of Fife is a descendant of Victoria through her eldest son, Edward VII; his grandmother was Louise, the Princess Royal. Did Victoria perhaps give the tiara to Louise?

In the photograph, you can clearly see that Caroline is wearing not only the tiara but also a necklace and brooch that look suspiciously like the ones worn by Queen Victoria in this portrait. The fact that the Carnegies may have had access in the 1960s to all three of the pieces leads me to believe that the tiara may still have been in their possession when Munn wrote his book. This branch of the family has been less candid when it comes to the jewels in their possession than some other descendants of Queen Victoria. For example, we’ve only been able to establish that the famous Fife tiara remains with the family based on photographs of Carnegie brides who have worn the piece. With that in mind, it seems entirely possible to me that the duke might not have wanted to make his ownership of this tiara clear.

There were major rumors that this tiara was sold and possibly even dismantled in the years following its two most recent public appearances (in a Munn-curated exhibition at Wartski in 1997, and in Munn’s 2001 book). Happily, though, they turned out to be false! The tiara still exists, and it went on display with the rest of the pieces of the accompanying parure at Kensington Palace in March 2018.

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Detail from Winterhalter’s The Royal Family (1846); source here.
2. A version of this post originally appeared at A Tiara a Day in August 2013.