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Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Saturday Sparkler: Princess Ingeborg’s Star Tiara

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Even though turquoises are relatively inexpensive semi-precious gems, many royal families do not own significant pieces of turquoise jewelry, let alone tiaras featuring turquoises. But this tiara, once in royal hands and now owned by Danish nobles, combines turquoises with stars.

Ingeborg wears the star tiara at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in 1937 [source]

The tiara’s first owner was Princess Ingeborg of Denmark, the daughter of King Frederik VIII and Queen Louise of Denmark. (She’s best known today for because of the brilliant marriages made by her daughters, including Crown Princess Märtha of Norway and Queen Astrid of the Belgians, making her the grandmother of one reigning king and the great-grandmother of a reigning king and a reigning grand duke.)

When Ingeborg married Prince Carl of Sweden in 1897, she received this tiara as a wedding present. The giver was none other than the Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, who was one of Ingeborg’s first cousins. The tiara also has a coordinating star brooch.

When Ingeborg’s jewelry was distributed between her children after her death in 1958, this tiara was inherited by her daughter, Princess Margaretha. She had married back into the Danish royal family, wedding her cousin Axel in 1919. Margaretha wore the tiara frequently, but this branch of the Danish/Swedish royal family was extremely generous about sharing jewels with their female relatives. Along with Ingeborg and Margaretha, Crown Princess Märtha was also photographed in the tiara; so was Princess Anne of Denmark, Margaretha’s daughter-in-law (and niece of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother).

Margaretha bequeathed the turquoises to her daughter-in-law, the late Countess Ruth of Rosenborg, in 1977. Today the tiara belongs to Ruth’s daughter-in-law, Countess Jutta, who has worn it at royal events. Apparently the plan is for this tiara to stay in the family, inherited by successive generations, and because the Rosenborgs still attend royal events like weddings, we may be able to see these stars shining occasionally in the future.

This Week in Royal Jewels: January 22-28

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January 22-28, 2016
We’ve got a rather surprising winner in the weekly jewel review this week. Vote for your favorite in the poll below!
10. Princess Charlene of Monaco donned a sparkling pair of stud earrings during a ceremony in honor of Monaco’s patroness, Sainte Devote, on Tuesday.

9. For the presentation of scholarships from the Micael Bindefeld Foundation on Wednesday, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden wore a pair of pearl drop earrings.
8. Queen Silvia of Sweden also chose pearl earrings, plus an unusual brooch, for the opening of an exhibition of royal clocks on Friday.
7. I almost ranked this photograph first, just because it’s absolutely bonkers, but if you can look past Alessandra Borghese, Bianca Jagger (!), and that hat (!!!), Princess Gloria of Thurn and Taxis wore pearl earrings at a signing for her new book in Paris on Monday. Phew.
6. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands selected dangling diamond earrings and a dazzling dress for a concert in Brussels on Friday.
5. She wasn’t the only queen consort at the concert; Queen Mathilde of the Belgians also attended, and she wore her lovely diamond tassel earrings.
4. Mathilde wore a set of intriguing modern gold jewelry on Wednesday at an engagement in Brussels.
3. And Maxima also wore a set of gold statement jewelry on Thursday at a film festival in Rotterdam.
2. It may be familiar, but it’s still wonderful: the Duchess of Cornwall wore one of her pearl necklaces with a diamond clasp at Wilton’s Music Hall on Thursday.

1. But my dark-horse vote for the best jewels of the week goes to a woman who once was royal: Sarah, Duchess of York, who wore the diamond necklace and earrings that were wedding gift from Queen Elizabeth II at a charity gala in London on Monday. (These were the same diamonds, FYI, that were a part of the strange theft at JFK in the ’90s. More on that story over here…)