Don’t Miss a Single Sparkling Moment! Sign up for The Court Jeweller Newsletter

The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

This Week in Royal Jewels: July 11-17

by // Leave a Comment

July 11-17, 2014
Time for another week’s worth of royal glitter! This week, we feature a first meeting between two royal spouses, plus a first official engagement for a princess-to-be. Enjoy!



10. Crown Princess Victoria celebrated her birthday on Monday at the Swedish family’s summer residence in Oland. For the family’s traditional morning appearance outside their Solliden home, Victoria wore pearl earrings. She also donned necklaces given to her by local children as she greeted Swedes in the gathered crowd.

9. Victoria wasn’t the only member of the family who picked up some jewelry on Monday morning. Could her daughter, Princess Estelle, be any cuter in her bracelets?

8. The Swedish royal matriarch, Queen Silvia, went for more traditional elegance with her jewelry on Monday, wearing a pearl necklace and earrings. But even she added a whimsical touch with her hair ornament. Anyone else suspect that Estelle may have had a role in the placement of that little bauble?

7. Another member of the Swedish royal family, Sofia Hellqvist, attended her first official event at Monday evening’s concert. Rain caused the royal ladies to seek the safety of ponchos for much of the event, but she still managed to keep her bracelet visible. Sofia often wears a bracelet in support of her charity, Project Playground, but this looks to be a different piece.

6. King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain embarked on another of their introductory visits this week, this time to Morocco. Letizia kept her jewelry minimal while visiting a cancer research center on Tuesday, but Lalla Salma, the wife of the Moroccan king, wore an eye-catching brooch.

5. Lalla Salma also stole the show at a dinner held for the Spanish royals, wearing a gorgeous set of emeralds. But Letizia didn’t wholly forego the bling, wearing her wedding earrings and her Cartier diamond bracelet on her left wrist.

4. One of the unsung workers of the Windsor clan, Princess Alexandra, opened a hospice center in Lichfield on Friday. She wore a pair of stunning sapphire earrings, plus a golden tortoise brooch. It makes sense that Alexandra knows her bling; after all, she’s descended from the Romanovs and the Greek royal family as well as the Brits!

3. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall have been busy in Devon and Cornwall this week. In Axminster on Tuesday, Camilla donned a delicate floral brooch with some serious history: it’s a Faberge piece that was given to the Queen Mum by Nikita Khrushchev.

2. The dress code was rather relaxed for the christening of Princess Amalia of Nassau on Saturday, but the baby’s grandmother, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg, still managed to add a bit of sparkle with earrings and a pendant necklace.

1. Does it get much better than this? Queen Elizabeth II held a reception at Buckingham Palace on Monday for the winners of the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, and she wore one of her rarely-seen treasures: the brooch made of the Cullinan VI and Cullinan VIII stones. (Need a refresher on the Cullinan? Here you go!)

Redesign It: Queen Elizabeth II’s Belgian Sapphire Tiara

by // Leave a Comment

Time for another chance for you to play court jeweller, magpies! Today, our jewel in question is the sapphire tiara that Queen Elizabeth II acquired in the 1960s to coordinate with a demi-parure of Victorian sapphire jewels given to her by her father, King George VI. The tiara is a converted necklace; the piece once belonged to Princess Louise of Belgium, who married a Saxe-Coburg and Gotha prince.
If you had a chance to make changes to this tiara, what would you do?

Queen Sonja’s Amethysts

by // Leave a Comment

We’ve had a look at two of the modern sets of jewelry owned by our Magpie of the Month, Queen Sonja of Norway, and today, we’re shining the spotlight on a third. But while the first two sets are extremely modern in execution, the third set, her amethyst parure, has echoes of heirloom pieces in its design.

Queen Sonja of Norway

The amethyst and diamond parure was a gift to Queen Sonja from her husband, King Harald V of Norway. The set consists of several pieces: a convertible necklace/tiara, a pair of earrings with removable drops, two bracelets that can be combined and worn together as a second necklace, and a brooch that can also be attached as a part of the bracelet-necklace. Harald clearly values versatility in the jewelry sets that he gifts to his wife!

Queen Sonja of Norway

Sonja wore the entire set at the gala held the night before the wedding of her son, Crown Prince Haakon, in 2001. She pinned the brooch to the center of her gown’s neckline, and she stacked both bracelets on her right arm.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway

For years, the queen was the primary wearer of this piece, sporting it as both a necklace and a tiara. In recent years, however, she appears to have either given or permanently loaned the parure to her daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Mette-Marit. (There’s some speculation that it might have a gift in celebration of the birth of Mette-Marit’s daughter and the heir to the throne, Princess Ingrid Alexandra.)

Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway

The crown princess generally wears the piece as a tiara, though she only sometimes uses the combined pair of bracelets to make a matching necklace. At the Swedish royal wedding in 2013, for example, she wore a capelet over her dress that made the addition of a necklace a bit of a moot point.

Princess Märtha Louise of Norway

One other Norwegian royal woman has also worn the tiara, however: Princess Märtha Louise donned the amethyst parure, including the tiara and the bracelet-necklace, at the 2010 wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden. While Mette-Marit features sleek hairstyles, Märtha Louise backed this tall necklace tiara with an impressive hairstyle, providing the amethysts with a substantial brunette backdrop.