The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

This Week in Royal Jewels: March 14-20

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March 14-20, 2014
Time once again for a sparkly royal roundup! Here’s a look at some of the biggest stories from the world of royal jewels this week.
10. Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway has kept her jewelry simple during her official visit with Crown Prince Haakon to Vietnam this week, generally sticking to a few stacked bracelets (including one that appears to have an “evil eye” motif) to add a bit of sparkle.

9. In Fabergé news this week: one of the bejeweled eggs given by Alexander III to Marie Feodorovna popped up again recently. It’s worth a cool 20 million pounds!

8. On Friday, Queen Sofia of Spain wore her favorite strand of multi-colored pearls and a golden brooch to visit the “El Griego de Toledo” exhibit at the museum of Santacruz.
7. In Ghana, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden has chosen more colorful jewels, including a playful pair of earrings for an engagement on Tuesday.
6. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands indulged in her penchant for purple once again this week, pairing oversized purple earrings with a coordinating chapeau.
5. As expected, the Duchess of Cambridge borrowed the shamrock brooch from the Irish Guards for the third year running on Monday; she wore it to present shamrocks to the regiment with the Duke.
4. If you’re in Stockholm tomorrow, pop by the palace for a lecture on royal jewels by Göran Alm. The presentation will reportedly focus on jewels from the Renaissance to the present; check out the royal court’s website for ticketing info.
3. Queen Elizabeth II also chose bright, spring-like colors for a visit to the University of London. She accessorized her blue ensemble with the Carrington Feather Brooch, which she received as a wedding gift in 1947. The piece features a sapphire nestled within the diamond feather, and it is sadly not named after Alexis Carrington, although she would certainly have worn it.
2. The Emperor and Empress of Japan welcomed the Vietnamese president to Tokyo this week; Empress Michiko wore pearls and a glittering brooch for the occasion. (Sadly, she went sans tiara for the state banquet!)
1. The always-dependable Danes brought out the glitter for their own state visit festivities this week, however. At a state banquet for the Turkish president, Queen Margrethe II wore the Baden Palmette Tiara, Crown Princess Mary wore her wedding tiara, Princess Marie wore Princess Dagmar’s Floral Tiara, and Princess Benedikte wore the Star and Pearl Tiara (although she’s mistakenly identified as Queen Anne-Marie — oops!). Ain’t no party like a Scandinavian tiara party!

Royal Amethysts

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Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway [1]
February is quickly drawing to a close, but I didn’t want to let the month fly away without paying tribute to its royal purple birthstone, the amethyst. Here’s a roundup of some of my favorite amethysts in royal and noble collections. (Spoiler alert — the amethysts above are sadly not included!) Add your picks below in the comments!
Victoria, Duchess of Kent [2]
The Kent Amethysts
One of the rare parures in the British royal collection that lacks a tiara, the Kent amethysts originally belonged to Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent. The set includes a necklace, earrings, three brooches, and a pair of hair combs. Queen Victoria inherited the demi-parure from her mother, and she bequeathed the set to the crown on her own death in 1901.
Elizabeth II wears a single brooch from the set most frequently, but she wore the necklace, one of the brooches, and the earrings on a state visit to Portugal in 1984. Leslie Field notes that the Queen “appears to have no special affection for the stone, as she has worn the Kent suite only twice in public” [3]. HM also owns another amethyst necklace, a wedding gift from Queen Alexandra to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, that she has apparently never worn in public at all. (It was worn at the premiere of Skyfall by the Duchess of Cornwall.) And then there’s the famous case of Queen Mary’s amethysts, which the Queen refused for the royal collection. Too bad for those who want to see her wearing more royal purple — but at least the amethysts that remain in the Windsor vaults have a centuries-old royal provenance.
The Napoleonic Amethyst Parure

Among the number of impressive parures owned by the Swedish royals is perhaps the best royal amethyst set of all: the Napoleonic amethysts. Given by Empress Joséphine to her daughter-in-law, Augusta of Bavaria, the amethysts came to Sweden with Augusta’s daughter, Joséphine. They’ve remained with the family ever since, and today they are a part of the family’s jewel foundation. The set was given a makeover in the 1970s that included transforming a large necklace into a tiara; today, the parure consists of a tiara, a pair of bracelets that can also be worn as a necklace, earrings, and a series of brooches and pins. The lovely, deep-purple stones are worn by all three of the senior Bernadotte ladies — Silvia, Victoria, and Madeleine — at various white-tie events.

Queen Alexandra [4]

Queen Alexandra’s Amethysts
The current queen of the United Kingdom may not be the biggest fan of amethysts, but her great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra, absolutely loved them. The amethyst tiara she wears at right was given to her by her brother-in-law, Tsar Alexander III of Russia, who was married to Alexandra’s sister, Dagmar The tsars had access to one of the best sources of high-quality amethysts in the world: the amethyst mines of Siberia. The tiara featured seven of those large, oval-shaped Siberian amethysts set in diamonds. Alexandra later also commissioned an amethyst necklace (which could also be converted into a tiara) to coordinate with the tiara she already owned. Both of the amethyst pieces were inherited by her daughter, Princess Louise, in 1925; they were sold at auction twenty years later. In recent years, Alexandra’s amethyst necklace has popped up in public twice: once at the tiara exhibition at the V&A in 2002, and then again in 2007, when it was once again put up for auction [5].

The Tavistock Amethysts
Some of the most gorgeous amethysts of all belong not to a royal family but to a British aristocratic family. The Russells, who hold the Bedford dukedom, have a necklace and tiara set with beautiful wine-colored amethysts [6]. (The set takes its name from one of the dukedom’s subsidiary titles, the Tavistock marquessate.) The grape-colored stones were set around 1870 into a tiara of diamond leaves. The entire effect is delightfully Dionysian — which makes perfect sense, as the word “amethyst” roughly translates to “not intoxicated” in the original Greek. The Greeks believed that those who wore the stone were protected against drunkenness. I don’t know about that, but I think anyone who gets to wear amethysts as lovely as these is very lucky indeed!


NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped version of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
2. Cropped version of an image in the public domain; source here.
3. See The Queen’s Jewels, p. 20.
4. Cropped version of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
5. See details from the 2007 auction of the necklace here.
6. A large photograph of one of the Bedford duchesses wearing the set is available in Scarisbrick’s Ancestral Jewels (see p. 165)

This Week in Royal Jewels: February 7-13

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February 7-13, 2014
From the oldest crown in the world to a glittering surprise in Britain, here are the top ten news stories about royal jewels this week!
10. If you’re in the New York area, get ready: the oldest crown in the world will be on display in your city starting today. It’s from Israel, is six thousand years old, is made of iron, and includes vultures in its design — not sure at all why that royal jewel trend didn’t last.
9. They may not be vultures, but the Duchess of Cornwall wore a pair of turquoise, diamond, and gold bird brooches to visit a radio station on Tuesday.
8. After spending her accession day at Sandringham (an annual tradition), Queen Elizabeth II returned to London. For the train journey from King’s Lynn, she paired her usual pearls with the Grima Ruby Brooch.
7. After several days spent cheering on the Dutch speed skaters in Sochi, Queen Maxima wore sentimental jewelry at the Centre for Healthy Weight in Rotterdam, including two bracelets that incorporate the names and initials of her husband and her three daughters.
6. At an engagement in Amsterdam on Thursday, Maxima chose slightly more theatrical jewels: a pair of large, dangling blue earrings.
5. Following their series on the auctioned jewelry from the collection of the late Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte of Luxembourg, the bloggers at Luxarazzi highlight one of the pieces that was kept by the family: Queen Astrid’s diamond and emerald choker.
4. The Countess of Wessex wore a delicate pendant necklace and drop earrings for a visit to Dorchester Abbey on Thursday.
3. Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway honored sustainable fashion designers this week in Oslo; she chose an appropriately fashionable cocktail ring for the event.
2. Queen Silvia of Sweden chose a pearl necklace and bracelet for the annual SemperOpernball at the Opera House in Dresden on Friday. The necklace incorporates a dusky orange stone in its clasp, possibly a topaz — there’s speculation that the set is new.
1. And finally, the top spot this week is reserved for a big jewel surprise: the Duchess of Cambridge borrowing the Queen’s Nizam of Hyderabad necklace for a gala at the National Portrait Gallery. Way to break out the serious bling, Kate!
NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS

1. Banner image: detail of The Marriage of George, Duke of York to Princess Mary of Teck (1894) by Laurits Tuxen. Image in the public domain; source here.