The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

This Week in Royal Jewels: August 4-10

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August 4-10, 2017
We’ve got lots of vacation bling this week, plus a surprising amount of sparkle from the opera! Don’t forget to vote for your favorites in the poll below!
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10. Queen Letizia of Spain wore her beloved Chanel star stud earrings on Sunday for a visit to a museum in Soller during the family’s summer holiday in Palma de Mallorca. (More over here!)

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9. For the family’s July 31 photocall at Marivent Palace, Queen Letizia wore the Milky Way earrings from Gold and Roses. (More here!)
8. As she began her official summer residency at Balmoral Castle, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom wore the cap badge of the Royal Regiment of Scotland on Monday to inspect the regiment’s guard of honor.
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7. Infanta Elena of Spain and her children are also in Palma de Mallorca; she chose hot pink beaded jewels and other layered pieces for a visit to the local bullring. (More of Elena’s jewels from the week over here!)
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6. For an official dinner at Almudaina Palace on Friday, Queen Sofia of Spain wore a gold earring and necklace set with additional layered necklaces. (More of Sofia in Mallorca over here!)
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5. For the Friday dinner, Queen Letizia selected the Almond Flower Gold Earrings from designer Helena Nicolau. (See the whole ensemble over here!)
4. The Spaniards weren’t the only royals in Mallorca this week; Queen Silvia and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden were there to attend the wedding of Helena Christine Sommerlath, Silvia’s niece. Silvia repeated the multicolored pearls and gown that she recently wore in Germany, while Victoria wore her diamond and white gold earrings from Kreuger.
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3. In Salzburg on Sunday, Princess Gabriele zu Leiningen wore glittering statement earrings to see Aida at the Opera Festival with her son, Prince Aly Muhammad Aga Khan.
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2. Also attending Aida on Sunday was Princess Ursula of Bavaria, who wore her impressive multi-stranded pearl necklace.
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1. And one final glittering guest from Sunday’s opera in Salzburg: Princess Firyal of Jordan, the former sister-in-law of the late King Hussein. She gets my top vote of the week with her oversized hoop earrings and a glittering choker necklace.

Princess Mabel’s Wedding Tiara

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Tomorrow, Princess Mabel of Orange-Nassau, daughter-in-law of Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands and sister-in-law of King Willem-Alexander, celebrates her birthday. To help us all get in a celebratory mood, we’re taking a deep dive today into the interesting history of her wedding tiara.

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In 2003, the engagement of Mabel Wisse Smit and Prince Friso, the second son of Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus of the Netherlands, was announced. But soon after the engagement was announced, the couple’s wedding plans were put in jeopardy. Because Mabel and Friso had failed to fully divulge the extent of her previous relationship with Klaas Bruinsma, a Dutch narcotics trafficker, the Dutch government refused to submit the couple’s marriage to parliament for approval. Marrying without government approval meant that Friso would lose his place in the line of succession. But Friso loved Mabel more than the dim prospect of becoming king, and he announced that he would marry her rather than retain his place in the succession. Rather than becoming a Princess of the Netherlands, Mabel would become a Princess of Orange-Nassau.

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On April 24, 2004, Mabel and Friso were married in Delft. Mabel wore a bridal tiara retrieved from the very depths of the Dutch vaults. The all-diamond tiara features three rows of gemstones cascading down from a central high point in a way that echoes the shape of a kokoshnik.

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On Friso and Mabel’s wedding day, the Dutch royal house put out a press release describing the wedding tiara as a “second setting” of the family’s grand sapphire tiara. (You can read more about that tiara over here!) But subsequent research by jewelry historians, including Vincent Meylan, has shown that this isn’t precisely the case. Mabel’s tiara is actually a completely separate piece of jewelry. Made by Mellerio, it was purchased by the Dutch royal family in April 1888, during the reign of King Willem III. The tiara was originally a necklace, and it was set with both brown and white diamonds.

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But there is a link to the sapphire tiara: at some point, the brown diamonds were removed from the smaller tiara and replaced with the large white diamonds from the sapphire tiara. (There’s apparently a screw mechanism in the piece that allows the stones to be swapped out fairly easily.) Today, it seems that the diamonds are used for both tiaras, which helps to explain why we’ve not seen the two tiaras worn at the same event. The comparison photo above shows the diamonds set at the top of each tiara.

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Mabel has continued to be the primary wearer of her bridal tiara in the years after her wedding, though Queen Maxima has also taken the tiara out for a spin. Although Prince Friso’s tragic death still has lasting impacts within the Dutch royal family, Mabel still occasionally attends tiara events, and I imagine we’ll continue to see her wear this piece from time to time.