The Court Jeweller – Page 1847

Victoria Melita’s Sapphires

03.10.2014 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Victoria Melita of Edinburgh as Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna, ca. 1909 [1]

Another week, another look into Ducky’s jewel vaults! Today, we’re gazing upon one of the suites of jewelry that she inherited from her mother, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, Duchess of Edinburgh (and later Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha): her imperial sapphire parure.

The sapphire and diamond set was a present to Maria Alexandrovna on her wedding in 1874. Her groom was Prince Alfred, the second son of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. The pair married at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, surrounded by her Romanov relatives. Along with a ruby tiara and a diamond fringe, Tsar Alexander II gave his daughter a parure of diamonds and sapphires. The set included the tiara, a necklace, and a stomacher that could be broken into two brooches.

Victoria Melita [2]

The sapphires were designed with Maria’s future role in mind. The blue gems were set in diamond elements that included floral motifs symbolizing her new home: roses (for England), thistles (for Scotland), and shamrocks (for Ireland). In her write-up on the jewels, Ursula states that the sapphires had an even longer royal history than the set itself; they were inherited by the tsar from his mother, Alexandra Feodorovna (who was born Princess Charlotte of Prussia).

The parure was passed from Maria Alexandrovna to her second daughter, Victoria Melita. As we’ve discussed before, Ducky was unlucky in love; her first marriage to Ernst of Hesse was a bust, and her second wedding, to her cousin, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, was controversial. But she managed to hold on to the sapphires through both weddings. She was photographed in the complete parure in 1909, after she became Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna of Russia, but before she and the rest of the surviving Romanovs were forced to flee the country. In her biographical sketch of Ducky, Meriel Buchanan [3] describes the grand duchess wearing the sapphires during the Blessing of the Waters of the Neva ceremony in 1911: “the Grand Duchess Cyril looked magnificent, her train of cornflower-blue velvet lined with silver, a tiara of sapphires and diamonds blazing on her head, her blue eyes alight with happiness” [4].

Sadly, like so many jewels with Romanov connections, the whereabouts of this sapphire sparkler today are unknown. We know what happened to the necklace and the stomacher; Ducky sold them to Cartier in Paris after the Russian Revolution. (The sale probably happened around the same time she sold her Greek key kokoshnik to the Romanian royal family.) As for the tiara, who knows? I have a feeling it most likely met the same fate as Ducky’s other jewels. Times were tough for deposed royals, and nearly all of the surviving Romanovs sold off their gems to finance their post-imperial lives. I think it’s a safe bet that this piece was sold and likely broken up, joining so many other Russian tiaras in the mists of history [5].

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS

1. Cropped version of an image in the public domain; source here.
2. Cropped version of an image in the public domain; source here.
3. Muriel was the daughter of Sir George Buchanan, the British ambassador to Russia.
4. You can read the full biography here.
5. A version of this post originally appeared at A Tiara a Day in November 2013.

Jewel Detective: Sophie of Prussia

03.09.2014 by The Court Jeweller // Leave a Comment

Sophie of Prussia as Queen of the Hellenes, ca. 1913 [1]

Time for another jewel puzzle! Can you identify the jewels worn here by Sophie of Prussia, daughter of Kaiser Friedrich III of Germany and wife of King Constantine I of the Hellenes?

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS

1. Cropped version of photograph in the public domain; source here.

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.