The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Victoria Melita’s Meander Kokoshnik

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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.

Jewelry 101: Kokoshnik

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Kokshnik tiara worn by Marie Feodorovna of Russia [1]
Jewelry 101: Kokoshnik
This is the second installment of a series that provides information on various unusual terms associated with the world of royal jewelry. To catch up, visit our discussion of the term “parure” here.

Of all the questions I’m asked about royal jewels, and tiaras in particular, there are few I get as often as this one: what exactly is a kokoshnik? With so many kokoshniks in royal collections today, it’s a specialized term that gets used quite a bit.
Russian kokoshnik, ca. 1900 [2]
The word “kokoshnik” is translated from Russian. It originally referred to a headdress worn by married Russian women in certain parts of the country. These traditional kokoshniks varied a bit in size and shape. Some of them were gigantic — see the photograph at left — while some were smaller. In general, however, kokoshniks shared the same basic crescent shape. Many of them were secured at the back of the head by a ribbon.
Kokoshiks became popular in the world of royal jewels when the Romanov court began to wear them in the nineteenth century. Russian tsarinas and grand duchesses adapted the European fashion for tiaras, which had become fashionable at the court of Napoleon in France, to fit with these traditional Russian headdress shapes. In the hands of the Romanovs, the large kokoshnik headdresses that were a part of the traditional dress of many Russian peasants generally became smaller, crescent-shaped headpieces that resembled halos. 
Grand Duchess Anastasia [3]
The Romanovs embellished their kokoshniks with jewels; sometimes they attached stiff fabric backings to tiaras to achieve the desired shape, and sometimes they had tiaras made that echoed the shape of kokoshniks, with no fabric needed to supplement the piece. In the detail of the portrait at the top of this post, you can see the way that a row of pearls was affixed to a diamond fringe tiara worn by Tsarina Marie Feodorovna in order to mimic the crescent shape of kokoshniks. Unmarried Russian grand duchesses, like the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, frequently wore simple fabric kokoshniks without major jewels, although they were sometimes adorned with pearls (see the photograph of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna at right). When wearing court dress, many grand duchesses supplemented their kokoshniks with veils.
The kokoshnik-style tiara became popular throughout Europe in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries in part because of the various family ties that the Romanovs had with members of other royal houses. Tsarina Marie Feodorovna’s sister, Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, requested a tiara shaped like one of her sister’s kokoshniks as an anniversary gift in 1888. That kokoshnik tiara, made of diamonds set in white and yellow gold, is still worn today by her great-granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II [4]. Other royal and noble families, including the Bernadottes in Sweden and the Rosenborgs in Denmark, also have kokoshnik tiaras that were inspired by those worn at the Romanov imperial court.
Olga of the Hellenes [5]

European tiara collections today still include many examples of kokoshnik-shaped tiaras, largely because so many grand duchesses married into various royal families. Queen Olga of the Hellenes, who was born Grand Duchess Olga Constaninovna of Russia, brought an emerald-studded kokoshnik (see the photograph at right) with her to her new country. Although the family has altered the tiara over the years, its current incarnation echoes its original kokoshnik shape. Many Russian grand duchesses received diamond fringe tiaras, which mimicked the shape of kokoshnik headdresses, as a part of their wedding trousseaux; you can see some of those fringe tiaras gracing the heads of their descendants today in countries like Denmark (inherited from Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna) and Germany (inherited via two Romanovs, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna). These halo-esque fringe tiaras were sometimes called tiaras russe because of their links to the Romanovs.

After the Russian revolution of 1917, kokoshnik tiaras were also frequently purchased from the Romanovs by other royals. Queen Marie of Romania bought an impressive Cartier sapphire and diamond kokoshnik tiara from her aunt, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (“the Elder”) of Russia; it stayed with the Romanian royals until Queen Marie’s daughter, Princess Ileana, sold it in exile in the 1950s. Alexander I of Yugoslavia bought a diamond and emerald kokoshnik for his new wife, Princess Maria of Romania, in 1922; it had originally been made for Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, one of the Romanovs who was murdered by the Bolsheviks, and was sold to the Yugoslavian king by her niece, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (“the Younger”).
So, to identify a kokoshnik tiara in the wild today, ask yourself a couple of simple questions. Is it shaped like a halo or a half-moon? Does it have a distinctively curved top? Is it associated with Russia, or was it Russian-inspired? If you can answer “yes” to any of those questions, it’s highly likely that you’re looking at a kokoshnik. Which royal kokoshnik tiaras are among your favorites?
NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS

1. Detail of Ivan Kramskoi’s Portrait of Maria Fyodorovna (ca. 1880s); source here.
2. Photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
3. Photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
4. More on Queen Alexandra’s kokoshnik tiara can be found at the Royal Collection website.
5. Detail of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.

Cartier: Style and History

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On display for the first time: a sapphire worn by Queen Marie of Romania at her coronation [1]
If you happen to find yourself in Paris between now and the middle of February, you simply must find time to visit a glittering collection of jewels that includes a number of important and familiar royal gems. The Grand Palais is currently hosting an exhibition on the work of Cartier, showcasing pieces from the nineteenth century alongside more contemporary creations.
Among the 600 jewels in the exhibition, Cartier: Le Style et L’Histoire features a number of highly recognizable royal pieces. One of the most impressive is the sapphire pictured above. In the early 1920s, King Ferdinand of Romania purchased it from Cartier for his wife, Queen Marie. She wore the sapphire, which weighs more than 478 carats, to her coronation in 1922. The family probably sold the sapphire around 1947, when Marie’s grandson, King Michael, was forced to abdicate. It has been auctioned several times in the decades since, and in 2003, Christie’s sold the gem for almost $1.5 million [2]. Joelle Diderich notes that this is the first time that the sapphire, which is often said to be one of the largest ever discovered, has ever been exhibited to the public [3].
The Williamson diamond brooch [4]

The pieces loaned to the exhibition by Queen Elizabeth II have been seen by the public on a much more regular basis. One is the phenomenal Williamson brooch (pictured at right), which features one of the most valuable pink diamonds in the world. The diamond, which weighs more than 23 carats, was given to the queen by John Williamson as a wedding present in 1947 [5]. Cartier designed the brooch to complement the stone five years later. Unfortunately, Suzy Menkes says that the exhibit does not display the piece to its greatest effect, because the “low lighting does not do this rose pink stone justice” [6]. The other piece loaned by Elizabeth to the exhibit is perhaps even more recognizable: it’s the Halo tiara that the Duke of York (later George VI) purchased for his wife from Cartier in 1936. We know it better today as the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding tiara [7]. The curators of this exhibition knew to capitalize on that famous connection; Kim Willsher explains, “To ensure its significance did not go unremarked, there was a framed photograph of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, wearing the Halo diadem – ‘something borrowed’ from the Queen – at her wedding to Prince William in 2011” [8].

Diamond tiara once owned by Queen Elisabeth of Belgium [9]

But Kate’s wedding tiara isn’t the only diadem in the exhibition that has connections to royalty. Doulton reports that “one of the first cases displays a revolving carousel of diamond tiaras that shower out sparkles of light and revolve just slowly enough to take in their delicate grace,” marveling that it makes the viewer feel like her or she is “standing pressed against the wall at a ball during the height of the Belle Époque” [10]. One of these sparklers is the diamond and platinum bandeau (pictured above) acquired from Cartier by Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians in 1912. The tiara was worn by Elisabeth at several major royal occasions, including the weddings of her son and grandson. It was eventually sold back to Cartier by Princess Lilian, Elisabeth’s daughter-in-law, in 1987 [11].

The Essex tiara [12]

And there are plenty of other tiaras with royal connections, too. The Essex tiara (pictured above), made for a countess and later worn by the wife of a prime minister (that’d be Lady Churchill) and a crown princess (Margarita of Romania), is on display [13]. So are two tiaras from the collection of Marie Bonaparte, including her olive wreath tiara [14].

The Windsor flamingo
brooch [16]

As you might expect, there are a number of objects included in the exhibition that were worn by Princess Grace of Monaco. The Grimaldis have loaned Grace’s engagement ring, an impressive diamond and platinum necklace, several animal brooches, and the three brooches that make up the Bains de Mer tiara [15]. And another pair of famous royal Cartier customers, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, are represented by several jewels. The duke’s grandfather, Edward VII, famously dubbed Cartier “the jeweler of kings,” and although David abandoned his throne, he continued to patronize the jeweler as if he were still a sovereign. Among the duchess’s jewels on display are her famous flamingo brooch (pictured at right) and one of her diamond panthers, this one perched on an enormous cabochon sapphire. Jewels from other American collectors like Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Barbara Hutton sparkle throughout as well.

The Patiala bib necklace [17]

But it’s a jewel that belonged to a male customer, not a woman, that perhaps steals the entire show. Cartier has loaned a restored version of the famous Patiala necklace (pictured at left) to the exhibition. Ordered from Cartier in 1928 by Bhupinder Singh, the Maharaja of Patiala, this bib necklace originally featured the yellow De Beers diamond in its pendant element. That diamond alone weighed more than 234 carats; the restored version of the necklace features a replica stone in its place (along with other replacement stones throughout). Doulton marvels that the “jaw-dropping” necklace, which features diamonds “the size of conkers,” is able to be “seen from across the vast room” [18]. The necklace was discovered in pieces in 1998, identified as Cartier, and restored.

The exhibition is being held at the Grand Palais, located on the Avenue de Champs-Élysées, until February 16, though it is closed on Tuesdays. Much more is available at the exhibition’s website. But if you, like me, can’t make it to Paris to see these remarkable gems before the show closes in a few weeks, there’s another alternative available. An iPad app, which features gorgeous, high-definition photos of many of the famous royal gems in the exhibition, is available for $3.99. Its text is in English, and it’s quite a bit cheaper than a round-trip ticket to France!

A note: special thanks to reader Nancy, who was lucky enough to visit the exhibition, for sending me the gorgeous photographs in this post and giving me permission to use them on the blog. Thank you so much!

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Photograph taken by blog reader Nancy. Used with the kind permission of the photographer. Do not reproduce without the photographer’s consent.

2. See New York Magazine’s blog, The Cut, here.
3. See Women’s Wear Daily‘s review of the Cartier exhibition here.
4. Photograph taken by blog reader Nancy. Used with the kind permission of the photographer. Do not reproduce without the photographer’s consent.
5. In The Queen’s Diamonds, Hugh Roberts states, “Dr Williamson presented the diamond (uncut and weighing 54.5 metric carats) to Princess Elizabeth” (pg. 294). See also Field, pg. 102, and the Royal Collection website.
6. See the New York Times review of the Cartier exhibition here.
7. See more on the Halo tiara in this post at A Tiara a Day.
8. See the Guardian review of the Cartier exhibition here.
9. Photograph taken by blog reader Nancy. Used with the kind permission of the photographer. Do not reproduce without the photographer’s consent.
10. See the Telegraph review of the Cartier exhibition here.
11. See more on the Cartier bandeau in this post at A Tiara a Day.
12. Photograph taken by blog reader Nancy. Used with the kind permission of the photographer. Do not reproduce without the photographer’s consent.
13. See more on the Essex tiara in this post at A Tiara a Day.
14. See more on the olive wreath tiara in this post at A Tiara a Day.
15. See more on the Bains de Mer tiara in this post at A Tiara a Day.
16.  Photograph taken by blog reader Nancy. Used with the kind permission of the photographer. Do not reproduce without the photographer’s consent.
17.  Photograph taken by blog reader Nancy. Used with the kind permission of the photographer. Do not reproduce without the photographer’s consent.
18. See the Telegraph review of the Cartier exhibition here.