The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

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)

Princess Louise’s Forget-Me-Not Tiara

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Princess Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife, ca. 1905 [1]
It’s time once more to peek into the jewel collection of our magpie of the month, everybody! I’ve saved one of the most intriguing pieces from Princess Louise’s jewels for last: her diamond floral tiara, composed of several diamond elements — and possibly seen in recent years on a popular television drama.
The tiara, seen above, is actually composed of multiple pieces of jewelry cobbled together. It includes a diamond floral spray and a series of floral brooches, including daisies and forget-me-nots. The pieces were all from among Louise’s wedding gifts, though there are conflicting reports about the identity of the giver. Ursula identifies two parties who gave the princess diamond floral garlands and/or floral brooches: Lord Farquhar, the best man at the wedding, and the Sassoon family. She suggests that the tiara may be composed of parts from both gifts [2].
Louise was photographed in the tiara in 1905, standing alongside her mother, Queen Alexandra, and her sister, Princess Victoria. It’s the best portrait that exists of Louise wearing the tiara, and to my knowledge, she wasn’t pictured in the tiara again after that occasion. Exactly what happened to the tiara is something of a mystery — the pieces were likely inherited by one of her daughters, Alexandra or Maud; some of the jewels that they received from their mother were later sold at auction.

In 2012, a new theory emerged about this tiara’s fate. That year, Lady Mary Crawley, one of the main characters in Downton Abbey, the famous ITV period drama, wore a diamond floral spray tiara in her wedding on the show. That tiara was borrowed by the production company from Bentley & Skinner, a London-based firm that acquires and sells antique jewels. They describe Lady Mary’s wedding tiara as an “important Georgian diamond tiara, the tiara in the form of a garland spray of leaves and floral clusters, pave-set throughout with old-cut diamonds, weighing an estimated total of 45 carats, cutdown collet-set in silver to a yellow gold mount, convertible to two brooches, gross weight 75.5 grams on frame, circa 1800” [3].

The tiara currently owned by Bentley & Skinner is not linked by the firm to the diamond spray worn by Princess Louise. However, an article in the Daily Mail claims that the two are indeed the same piece. They call it the “myrtle tiara” and note that it was a gift from the Sassoons to the princess; they also note that it can be dismantled and worn as a set of brooches, “which Princess Louise often did” [4]. The Mail article doesn’t give sources for the information, though as the piece involves its writer, Petronella Wyatt, trying on the tiara under the watchful gaze of a public relations rep from Bentley & Skinner, it seems plausible that they may have shared the information with the paper.

Other jewel watchers aren’t sure about the connection; posters at the Royal Jewels of the World forum have examined the two pieces and decided that there are significant differences between the two [5]. I think it’s also plausible, though, that as Louise received diamond floral sprays from two different guests at her wedding, she may be wearing one spray (possibly the one given to her by Farquhar) in the 1905 photo, while the second, slightly different piece is now owned by Bentley & Skinner (and available for you to rent out for a mere £1,750 a day — plus a  £126,000 deposit! [6]). It’s tough to say for certain, but I am sort of glad that a piece that was perhaps formerly worn by royalty is still accessible to the public today — even if it’s only on television on Sunday evenings.

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped version of a photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
2. See more, including additional photos, at Ursula’s website.
3. The Bentley & Skinner page on the tiara, including a set of photos, can be seen here.
4. You can read the full piece on the tiara from the Mail on their website.
5. Here’s the relevant thread from the message board.
6. Here are the details, again from the Mail.

Jewel History: Wedding Gifts Fill Big Hall at Palace (1922)

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Viscount Lascelles and Princess Mary on their wedding day in 1922 [1]
“Wedding Gifts Fill Big Hall at Palace”
(originally appeared in the Washington Post, 25 Feb 1922)
The spacious picture gallery in Buckingham Palace, which is as large as the grand ballroom of any New York hotel, today presented a dazzling spectacle to a small party of invited guests who viewed a portion of the magnificent wedding presents that have been sent to Princess Mary and Viscount Lascelles, who are to be married next week. 
The prewedding exhibition of the gifts had been planned to take place at St. James’s Palace, where they were received, until the death of Lady Feodora Gleichen there Wednesday morning, which necessitated the change.
Cases Blaze with Gems
Only the smaller and more portable presents have been transferred to Buckingham Palace, but they turned the great gallery into a hall of glittering splendor. A half hour was the time limit for the visitors and this afforded them time for only a casual inspection of the wonderful display. In glass cases blazed diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds, adn there were pearls, gold and silver articles, and priceless antiques, each distinctive in design and of studied elegance.
There was the three-fold gift of King George — a tiara of diamonds and sapphires and a necklace and bracelet studded with similar stones. The monarch’s gift to his daughter occupied the central position of honor in the hall.
Lord Lascelles and Princess Mary [2]
Brooch Queen’s Gift
Then there was to be seen a brooch given by Queen Mary — one great sapphire encircled by diamonds [3]. With these and the other gems on display the princess could go through an entire court season without having to wear twice any bit of jewelry.
Another case held the gift of Viscount Lascelles to his bride-to-be — a corsage of sapphires and diamonds, from which one massive stone shone forth from the field of lesser brilliants. A cluster of diamonds is suspended from the corsage. It contains two large pearls. There also was a riviere, or necklace, of diamonds, and a diamond pendant containing two large pearl drops. This gorgeous display of jewels will be worn by Princess Mary at the wedding.
Nearby was Princess Mary’s gift to Viscount Lascelles. This consisted of a pair of antique souffle dishes and a platinum and gold watch chain set with pearls.
Wales Gives Bracelet
The Prince of Wales’s gift to his sister is a diamond and sapphire bracelet. Dowager Queen Alexandra has given the princess a marvelous corsage of pearls, with emerald drops, and a beautiful necklace containing six rows of stones.
Princess Mary’s aunts, the Princess Royal, Princess Victoria, and the Queen of Norway, combined in their present, sending the princess a long diamond lace brooch. The Duke of York and Princes Henry and George have given their sister a sapphire and diamond ring, unique in style and setting. From the bridegroom’s parents has come a large diamond brooch.
A large ring came from Queen Victoria of Spain. Queen Amelia has given the bride-elect a gold bracelet containing one huge ruby and one pearl, with a circle of diamonds as a clasp.
Princess Mary [4]
Clock from Duke of Connaught
The great-aunts of the princess and the Duke of Connaught have presented her with an ebony and gold antique clock. Another clock, perhaps the most remarkable of the lot, has been sent by Prince and Princess Christopher of Greece. It is a carriage clock with a gold sunray face, with two silver and diamond stars moving around to indicate the hours and minutes.
Conspicuous among the other presents were a miscellany of rich ropes of pearls, jeweled fans, and huge silver vessels from the members of the British cabinet and others from the diplomatic corps; a handsome negligee [5] with a center of emeralds and a coronet of precious stones from the navy; a silver dressing table set from the army; a mink coat and muff from the twelve city companies; a diamond bracelet “from the men and women of the stage”; a negligee of rubies, pearls, turquoises, and diamonds shaped after the fashion of an eastern temple bell from Viceroy Reading of India and the Countess Reading; a splendid sable coat from twenty-eight friends; two silver cake dishes from Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, widow of the former ambassador to the Court of St. James; and an infinite variety of other gifts, consisting of furniture and wearing apparel.
NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped version of a picture postcard available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
2. Image available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
3. Some have speculated that this was one of the Albert brooches — one of five copies of Queen Victoria’s sapphire and diamond brooch given to each of Albert and Victoria’s daughters. To my knowledge, there’s never been confirmation that this was indeed one of those brooches. See Suzy Menkes for more on the copies of the Albert brooch.
4. Image available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
5. A necklace is generally referred to as a “negligee” when it includes tassels or pendant drops of irregular length; the Delhi Durbar necklace is a good example. These were especially popular during the reign of Mary’s grandfather, Edward VII.