The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Queen Elizabeth II’s Aquamarine Clips

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Combine a gorgeous, pale blue gemstone, the lovely aquamarine, and a classic brooch form, paired clips, and you get today’s royal brooch: the set of aquamarine clips that belong to Queen Elizabeth II.

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The clips have been in the Queen’s jewelry box since years before she took the throne. They were a birthday gift to the then-Princess Elizabeth in 1944 from her father, King George VI. The vibrant blue shade of the aquamarines is especially clear in this photo, taken at the Rambert Dance Company in London in May 2001.

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The blue gems also shone brightly during the Queen’s visit to Imperial College in London in June 2004. For years, many royal jewel writers (including me!) thought the clips were made by Cartier, as Leslie Field attributed them to that firm in The Queen’s Jewels. She described the brooches as a “typically 1940s design, combining baguette, oval, and round stones.”

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But when the clips were included in the summer 2006 exhibition of the Queen’s dresses and jewels at Buckingham Palace, a palace press release described them as “a pair of Boucheron aquamarine and diamond clip brooches given to Princess Elizabeth by her father, King George VI, for her 18th birthday.”

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The Queen has worn the clips connected as a single brooch, but she generally wears them as separate clips, sometimes placing them vertically, as she did aboard the HMS Endurance in June 2005, or staggered on her shoulder or collar.

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The clips remain a regular part of the Queen’s jewelry rotation today, including a prominent recent appearance during President Obama’s visit to London in 2016. I’d love to see the brooches worn as a single brooch again!

The Drapers’ Company Brooch

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When Princess Maud of Wales married Prince Carl of Denmark in 1896, she received a treasure trove of jewels. At that point, though, she had no idea that her wedding gifts would one day become the cornerstone of a new royal collection. Carl and Maud became King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway in 1905, and her jewels are still some of the most important pieces in the Norwegian vaults. Today, we’re looking at one piece in particular: the Drapers’ Company Brooch.

The Illustrated London News, 1896
The illustrated list of Maud’s wedding gifts from the Illustrated London News features the brooch in the lower left-hand corner of the page. It is described as a “diamond and pearl ornament to be worn as a brooch or pendant.” The gift is attributed to the Drapers’ Company. (Read all about Maud’s royal wedding over here!)
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The Drapers’ Company is one of the livery companies in the City of London. It was founded in 1438 and received a royal charter in 1607. Today, one of its primary focuses is charitable work. Women and men who gain membership are granted the Freedom of the Company. In July of 1896, Prince Carl of Denmark became a freeman of the company; on the Thursday before the royal wedding, newspapers note that Carl and Maud’s brother, the Duke of York, were “entertained … by the Drapers company,” and Carl “was presented with the freedom of the Drapers’ Company.” The current Norwegian king, Harald V, is a freeman of the Drapers’ Company today; so is his cousin, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

Maud was photographed wearing the Drapers’ Company Brooch pinned to the bodice of one of her elaborate turn-of-the-century gowns on various occasions. The brooch and the rest of her jewels weren’t her only wedding present, though; she and Carl also received a home, Appleton House, on the Sandringham estate owned by her parents, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom. Even after becoming Norway’s queen consort, Maud spent a great deal of time at Appleton. She was on a visit to the Sandringham estate in October 1938 when she suddenly fell ill. After surgery in London, Maud died at Appleton House.

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Maud had brought her jewelry with her on her final visit to England, and it was left behind when her body was taken back to Norway. Less than a year later, war broke out, and the jewelry was transferred to Windsor Castle. It seems likely that the Drapers’ Company Brooch was among that collection. The jewels remained at Windsor until the Norwegian royals came to England for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. After the pomp and circumstance of the coronation had finished, they retrieved Maud’s jewels and brought them back to Oslo.

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The next person to wear the Drapers’ Company brooch should have been Maud’s daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Martha. But she was already ill with the cancer that would eventually kill her when Maud’s jewels were brought back to Norway, and she never got to wear most of the pieces from her mother-in-law’s collection. Instead, it seems that the next wearer of brooch was Maud’s granddaughter-in-law, Queen Sonja. She has made the brooch a central part of her jewelry rotation, especially in the 25 years since she became queen consort.

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Sonja has mostly worn the brooch for evening events, like the gala performance during Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s Ruby Jubilee celebrations in 2012. She sometimes pairs the brooch with (the replica of) another of Maud’s wedding gifts, her diamond and pearl tiara.

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The brooch also coordinates well with the impressive diamond tiara from Crown Princess Martha’s collection, Queen Josefina’s Diamond Tiara. Above, she pairs the jewels during the May 2008 visit to Portugal.

Thos Robinson/Getty Images for American-Scandinavian Foundation

She also quite frequently wears the brooch with no tiara at all. It really is a substantial piece that can hold its own even without a paired diadem. Here, Sonja wears the brooch with pearls at the American-Scandinavian Foundation celebration of its 100th anniversary at Centennial Ball in New York in October 2011.

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Fittingly, she has also worn the brooch at events in the United Kingdom. She wore the brooch pinned to her gown at the sovereigns’ dinner during Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee. Above, you can also see that the brooch also made an appearance at Buckingham Palace during the Diamond Jubilee.

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And she also wore the brooch (and the same red outfit) during one of the highest-profile celebrations in recent British memory: the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

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Sonja has also chosen the brooch for very personal events. Here, she wears it during the celebrations for her 70th birthday.

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The piece also made a prominent appearance during Harald and Sonja’s Silver Jubilee celebrations in Oslo in January 2016.

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But although it is such a central part of her own jewelry box, Sonja also loaned the Drapers’ Company Brooch out for a very important event. Crown Princess Mette-Marit wore the brooch with (the replica of) the small setting of Queen Maud’s Pearl Tiara at the Swedish royal wedding in 2010. It was a timely reminder of the continuity of monarchy: a future Norwegian queen consort donning the heirloom brooch at the wedding of a future Swedish queen regnant.

Note: This is an updated version of an earlier post, with new text and images.

The Queen Mother’s Lily of the Valley Brooch

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Some brooches are interesting because they’re beautiful, and some are interesting because they have a fascinating story. Today’s brooch, the Fabergé Lily of the Valley Brooch that belonged to the late Queen Mother, is both.

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The brooch was made by Fabergé to resemble a delicate spray of lily of the valley. It was given to the Queen Mother by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during his official visit to Britain in April 1956. Khrushchev, who visited alongside Nikolai Bulganin, presented lavish, bejeweled gifts to all three of the senior Windsor women during the trip.

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To my knowledge, we don’t have any official record of the Queen Mother wearing the brooch. These sorts of diplomatic gifts can sometimes be difficult to wear, because they have to be handled in specific, tactful ways. For example, the Queen received a sapphire and diamond brooch during the Khrushchev visit; in 1959, one newspaper reporter explained why an official gift like that brooch might not frequently be seen in public: “Some they wear, others are tucked away in vaults and seldom seen, such as the diamond brooch Nikita Khrushchev personally chose for the Queen before his visit to London in 1956. This will probably appear again only on Mr. Khrushchev’s next visit. Official guests are always complimented by seeing their previous gifts on display.”

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A generation removed from its original gift, though, the brooch’s political significance has become less immediate. Today, it’s more decorative than diplomatic, and it is now a favorite piece of the Duchess of Cornwall. She has worn the lovely, delicate brooch for many significant occasions, including the wedding of her daughter, Laura, in 2006. (It was a particularly good choice for a wedding. In the language of flowers, the lily of the valley symbolizes marital happiness.) Camilla has also often taken it on trips abroad. Above, she wears the brooch in Bogota during a five-day visit to Colombia in 2014.

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Camilla often wears the brooch against light green or cream-colored jackets, as she did above during a visit to Prince Edward Island in October 2014.

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She wore the brooch with the same outfit in Nunavut in June 2017, an occasion which gave us a particularly good look at the brooch’s delicate floral design.