The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Sunday Sparkler: Queen Alexandrine’s Fringe Tiara

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Countess Sussie of Rosenborg wears the fringe tiara [1]

If you delve deep enough into any royal tiara collection, you’re sure to bump into a fringe tiara eventually. Nearly every royal family has at least one of the sparklers, in part because so many of them are descended from the Russian grand duchesses who popularized them in the nineteenth century. We’re used to seeing one Danish princess, Benedikte, wearing a flashy fringe tiara on a regular basis. But that’s not the fringe tiara that actually comes from the Danish royal collection; Benedikte wears the fringe tiara of the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg family. The Danish royal fringe tiara is today’s sparkler: Queen Alexandrine’s Fringe Tiara.

Anastasia Mikhailovna [2]

This tiara, like so many others of its kind, began its life in Russia. Tsar Alexander II gave it to his niece, Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna, when she married Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1879. We’ve discussed before how popular these diamond fringe tiaras were in the imperial court of Russia. They were made to resemble Russian kokoshnik headdresses, and nearly every grand duchess received one in her wedding trousseau. Anastasia’s fringe tiara is a bit unusual; rather than being set in precise geometric spikes, the individual fringes of the tiara are actually a bit curved along the edges, with round diamonds arranged in a row and pear-shaped diamonds at the tip of each fringe. The tiara appears to be fuller in the photographs of Anastasia than it does on later wearers; this might suggest that the piece was altered at some point, but it might also be a case where the tiara was worn with a fabric kokoshnik behind it to make it look more solid.

Anastasia, who you can see wearing the fringe tiara in the image on the left, was quite the scandalous grand duchess — she gambled in Monaco, had an illegitimate son with her private secretary, and was even (probably falsely) accused of killing her husband. The press today would love her. But in between all of that, Anastasia also managed to give birth to a future queen. Her daughter, Alexandrine, married King Christian X of Denmark in 1898; she would be the next owner of the fringe tiara. According to Alexandrine’s granddaughter, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, she wasn’t that fond of wearing the elaborate royal jewels that she inherited from her Russian mother: “She was a very modest, really shy person. but for great occasions she would put on the jewelry that you would expect her to. But I remember that she did not wear a lot of jewelry.”

Alexandrine of Denmark [3]

When Alexandrine did wear grand jewels, however, this tiara was one that she would frequently wear. In the earlier years of her marriage, she wore the tiara low across her forehead, in the style that was fashionable at the time; later in her life, she wore the tiara atop her head. She later bequeathed the fringe tiara to her second son, Prince Knud. (Knud was set to succeed his brother Frederik as king of Denmark until a change to the constitution allowed his niece — the current Queen Margrethe II — to inherit the throne.) Today, Knud’s descendants still own the tiara, and his daughter-in-law, Countess Sussie of Rosenborg (pictured at the top of the post), often wears it to major Danish royal events. And the tiara also has another slightly peculiar legacy: a brand of Danish sardines features a portrait of Queen Alexandrine wearing the tiara on each tin. If you have to eat sardines, I think you should definitely choose a brand topped with a tiara! [4]

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped still from a YouTube video; source here.
2. Cropped still from a YouTube video; source here.
3. Cropped still from a YouTube video; source here.
4. A version of this post originally appeared at A Tiara a Day in April 2013.

Dutch State Visit Jewels

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Dutch state visit from President Prado of Peru, March 1960 [1]
It’s March, which means that state visit season is officially in full swing. The Swedes are visiting the Latvian president today, the Danes have recently had the Turks over, and the Dutch and Belgians have been hosting various leaders ahead of and in conjunction with the G8 conference. 
Queen Maxima at a state banquet during the Chinese state visit, March 2014
State visits are important political and diplomatic events, but they also provide us with an excellent opportunity to delight in a bit of royal glitter, as there is usually at least one white-tie event on the docket. Today, I’ve collected a group of photographs from Dutch state visits over the past few years. Marvel at the glamour of Queens Juliana, Beatrix, and Maxima, and consider this: if you could choose any jewels from the Dutch royal collection to wear (or look at) during a state visit, which set would you select?

Queen Juliana makes a visit to Britain, November 1950




Queen Juliana and Princess Beatrix welcome the Belgian royals, May 1960

Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard visit Ethiopia, January 1969

Queen Juliana and the Queen Mother during the Dutch visit to Britain, April 1972





A passel of royals during the Dutch visit to Britain, April 1972




Beatrix and Juliana host Juan Carlos and Sofia of Spain, March 1980





Queens Beatrix and Elizabeth II during the Dutch visit to Britain, November 1982




Beatrix visits Britain, May 1995




A toast during the Chilean visit to the Netherlands, May 2009





Queen Beatrix and Princess Maxima visit Germany, April 2011

Queen Beatrix during the Dutch visit to Luxembourg, March 2012




Queen Beatrix hosts the President of Turkey, April 2012
NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped version of an image available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.

Victoria Melita and the Strawberry Leaf Tiara

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Victoria Melita (with her daughter, Princess Elisabeth) wears the strawberry leaf tiara [1]
As we wind down the month of March, it’s time for yet another glimpse at the glittering jewels worn by Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. So far, we’ve looked at a suite of jewelry with links to her maternal Russian inheritance, the tiara she wore on her first wedding day, and the meander kokoshnik that she wore during her second marriage. Today’s piece is a bit different — it’s a diamond tiara that she wore frequently but that never really belonged to her personally at all.
Princess Alice [3]
The Strawberry Leaf Tiara of the grand ducal family of Hesse and by Rhine started its journey across the channel in Britain. In early 1861, Princess Alice, the third child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, became engaged to Princess Louis of Hesse. Prince Albert, who was interested in jewelry, set about designing bejeweled wedding presents for his daughter; sadly, however, he died before the marriage could take place. 
The jewels were given to Alice by her mother, who was careful to note the late prince consort’s role in their creation. Godey’s Magazine catalogues the piece among Alice’s wedding gifts: “a very beautiful tiara of diamonds, composed of a rich bandeau, with foliage, spires, etc., from Messrs. Garrard … designed … by his Royal Highness the Prince Consort” [2]. Queen Victoria noted in her diary that the tiara had indeed been designed by Albert.
Alice wore the diamond tiara on her wedding day, and she took it with her to her new home in the German grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, where she was frequently depicted wearing the piece (including in the photograph on the left). Unfortunately, however, she met the same sort of untimely end as her father, dying of diphtheria in 1878, exactly seventeen years to the day after Prince Albert’s death. One of her daughters, Marie, also died. The remaining five children survived: Victoria (grandmother of the Duke of Edinburgh), Alix (the last Empress of Russia), Ella (also later a Russian grand duchess — she was the only family member who did not suffer from the illness), Irene, and her only surviving son, Ernst.
Ernst, always called “Ernie,” would eventually succeed his father as the Hessian grand duke. In 1894, he married his seventeen-year-old first cousin, Princess Victoria Melita. As she was now Grand Duchess Victoria of Hesse, she would be the next woman to wear the strawberry leaf tiara designed by her grandfather. The tiara was now essentially a part of the royal jewel collection of the grand duchy, and Victoria Melita wore it in portraits and on important occasions. One of the most significant of these outings was in 1896, when she wore the tiara during the coronation festivities for her brother- and sister-in-law, Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. The illustration on the right depicts Victoria Melita wearing the strawberry leaf tiara (and, I believe, the emerald and pearl necklace we discussed last week) during the Russian imperial coronation [4].
Victoria Melita would only have use of the tiara for five more years. In 1901, after the death of their maternal grandmother, Ernie and Ducky divorced. She continued to wear many of the jewels she acquired during her first marriage (including the emerald and sapphire sets) after the end of her first marriage, but this tiara stayed with the Hesse family. The next wearer, appropriately, was Ernie’s second wife, Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich.
Both Grand Duchess Eleonore (see here) and her daughter-in-law, Princess Cecilie (the sister of the Duke of Edinburgh) were photographed in the tiara. But the tiara was nearly lost to history altogether: it was on board the ill-fated 1937 flight that killed several members of the Hesse family, including Eleonore and Cecilie [5].
The strawberry leaf tiara is still around, even though it is not generally worn; it is exhibited to the public occasionally. It’s also featured in Geoffrey Munn’s 2002 tiara bible, Tiaras: A History of Splendor [6]. The caption of the color photograph of the tiara in Munn’s book gives us our best information on its current ownership. The image is credited to “Hessische Hausstiftung,” which roughly translates to the “Hessian House Foundation” [7]. The foundation was established in the twentieth century to preserve the family’s cultural artifacts, including their massive art collection. It would make a great deal of sense if this historic heirloom tiara is a part of that cultural foundation today.
NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped version of an image in the public domain due to age; source here.
2. See page 407 in this digitized edition of the magazine for a more complete list of Alice’s gifts.
3. Cropped version of an image in the public domain due to age; source here.
4. Cropped version of an illustration in the public domain due to age; source here.
5. The family’s turquoise and moonstone tiara was also on the plane, and was one of the only items to survive the crash; today it is owned by the Geddes family.
6. See pp. 102-03 for large photographs of the tiara.
7. Here’s a link to the foundation’s website.