The Best Royal Jewels of 2020: #3 (Tiaras and Jewels of Kungliga Smycken)

The royal court of Sweden gave us a huge present this year: a stunning new documentary devoted to the Bernadotte jewelry collection! The third spot on our countdown of the best jewels of the year goes to the tiaras and jewels of Kungliga Smycken.

The landmark documentary, made by Sveriges Television with the cooperation and involvement of the royal family, offers beautiful new photographic documentation of the jewels, as well as discussion of their history. Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria, and Princess Christina all gave extensive interviews for the documentary. Historians like Claudia Thomé Witte and Göran Alm also offer fascinating insights on the jewels.

Each of the documentary’s two episodes are about an hour long. In the first episode, which we recapped a little bit here, the royals discuss the Cameos, the Leuchtenberg Sapphires, the Braganza Tiara, and the Napoleonic Cut-Steel Tiara. You can view the first episode here. (Pro-tip for those who don’t speak Swedish: if you watch the episode on the Google Chrome browser, you can use the translate feature to translate the episode’s subtitles.)

The second episode, which we recapped over here, features discussion of the Six Button Tiara, the Bernadotte Emeralds, Queen Sofia’s Tiara, the Baden Fringe Tiara, the Vasa Earrings, the Russian Pink Topaz Suite, and the Connaught Diamond Tiara. You can view episode two over here!