It’s that time again, magpies: my own personal Christmas list, the jewelry sale catalogue from Sotheby’s, has landed. Tomorrow, the auction house will offer two sessions of fine jewels in London, and there are some intriguing pieces attributed to royals and nobles among the lots. Enjoy a bit of sparkly dreaming — or, for the secret millionaires lurking among you readers, get out your credit card and get bidding!
Birthday Jewels: Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden
Prince Joachim of Denmark’s wedding, 18 November 1995
Scandinavian princesses are traditionally given their first tiara on their eighteenth birthdays. Victoria’s first tiara was a small sparkler made of diamonds and sapphires. She wore it frequently at gala events when she was still a teenager, including at the first wedding of Prince Joachim of Denmark and at the celebrations for her father’s 50th birthday. She has since moved on to more substantial tiaras, and this one hasn’t been seen in public since 2007.
Nobel Prize Banquet, 10 December 2003
In 2000, Victoria began wearing a diamond tiara made of four floral button elements. The piece was apparently assembled in the 1960s from a set of heirloom diamond buttons for the use of the Haga Princesses. Victoria occasionally supplements this tiara with an extra row of diamonds at the base. She has worn this one consistently over the past decade and a half, including important outings at Crown Prince Frederik’s wedding and Queen Margrethe II’s 60th birthday celebrations.
Nobel Prize Banquet, 10 December 2006
The tiara most closely associated with Victoria is the sunburst fringe tiara that once belonged to Victoria of Baden, who received the tiara as a wedding present in 1881. Crown Princess Victoria has been wearing this diamond sparkler regularly since at least 2001, when she wore it at the wedding of Crown Prince Haakon of Norway. She’s also worn it for her father’s 60th birthday celebrations, the enthronement gala for Prince Albert II of Monaco, and for her engagement portraits.
Charity Gala at the Palace of Versailles, 2 December 2002
This one’s sort of cheating — Victoria has worn the family’s modern diamond fringe tiara, but she’s worn it as a necklace. To my knowledge, she’s never sported this one as a tiara in public. As many think the tiara has been given to Princess Madeleine, it seems unlikely that she’ll wear this one again, but she did wear it as a necklace at a charity event at Versailles in 2002.
Nobel Prize Banquet, 10 December 2010
The larger of the family’s cut steel tiaras has been one of Victoria’s favorites to wear at the annual Nobel Prize gala events. This unusual tiara, which is one of the family’s heirlooms from the Napoleonic era, has no gemstones, but relies on the intricate way that the steel is cut for maximum sparkle. Victoria has been wearing this tiara since about 2004.
Swedish State Visit to Denmark, 10 May 2007
Another treasure from imperial France, Victoria wears the necklace-turned-tiara from the family’s amethyst parure fairly frequently. Queen Silvia has noted that the amethysts are especially suited for her daughter’s coloring. Victoria has worn this one to several major royal events, including the wedding of Princess Martha Louise of Norway in 2002 and the recent investiture ceremonies for King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.
Nobel Prize Banquet, 10 December 2007
A sister sparkler to the Four Button, Victoria has been wearing the diamond tiara with six button elements for a number of years. The tiara’s diamond rosettes were affixed to the crown of the first Bernadotte king, Carl XIV Johan, at his coronation in 1818. Some have speculated that this tiara was assembled in the twentieth century with the late Princess Lilian in mind. Victoria has primarily worn this one to Nobel banquets and during state visits.
Nobel Dinner, 11 December 2008
It’s hard to call this a tiara, really, but both Crown Princess Victoria and her sister, Princess Madeleine, have occasionally worn diamond necklaces in their hair as bandeaux for gala events. Here, Victoria has placed a necklace in her hair for the king’s Nobel dinner in 2008.
State Visit from Turkey, 11 March 2013
Victoria debuted a second cut steel tiara, said to come from the same Napoleonic stash as its larger cousin, during the wedding celebrations of Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume of Luxembourg in 2012. Like the larger version, this tiara has no gemstones, but sparkles because of the way the highly-polished steel is cut. Victoria’s worn this V-shaped tiara several times since.
Princess Madeleine’s Wedding, 8 June 2013
In 2013, Victoria inherited a diamond laurel wreath tiara from her great-aunt, Princess Lilian. The tiara, which can also be worn as a necklace, came from the collection of Victoria’s great-grandmother, Princess Margaret of Connaught. To honor Lilian, Victoria wore it to the first big royal event following her death: the wedding of Princess Madeleine in June 2013.
Crown Princess Victoria’s Wedding, 19 June 2010
Last but not least, Victoria has worn one of the grandest tiaras in the Swedish collection, the pearl and gold Cameo tiara, in public precisely once: on her wedding day in 2010. The tiara features cameos that tell the story of Cupid and Psyche, and it’s one of the family’s traditional bridal diadems. Made at the very start of the nineteenth-century, it’s one of the oldest tiaras still worn regularly today.