The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

Review: Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration

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Caroline de Guitaut’s Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration (2012) [1]
Without many of the wonderful books published over the years on royal jewelry, this blog wouldn’t be able to exist. I get lots of questions from readers about which books I recommend for their growing collections, so I thought I’d do one better and review some of the major books here at The Court Jeweller. We’re kicking off this series with one of the books that came out to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II — Caroline de Guitaut’s Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration.

First off, the specs. This book is deceptively small, but it includes 120 pages of information about the diamonds in the British royal collection, along with detailed photographs of selected pieces. Caroline de Guitaut, the book’s author, is the Curator of Decorative Arts for the Royal Collection. The book itself was published by the Royal Collection Trust as a “souvenir album” and companion to the summer 2012 exhibition of the queen’s diamonds at Buckingham Palace. It’s not the big, comprehensive book to come out of the Diamond Jubilee — that would be Hugh Roberts’s excellent The Queen’s Diamonds. But this one is considerably lighter, smaller, and less expensive. If you’re new to the world of British royal jewels, I would start here rather than splashing out the money for Roberts’s book. If you like this one, the bigger one will definitely also be your cup of tea. If you’ve already got the Roberts book, though, I’m not sure you need this one, too.
Queen Elizabeth II [2]
The book features approximately twenty of the most significant and historical diamond pieces currently in the Royal Collection, including crowns, tiaras, necklaces, earrings, brooches, and bracelets. A significant amount of space is devoted to the Cullinan Diamond in its various forms and mountings. There are pieces here from the Greville inheritance, from the Delhi Durbar suite, and from Queen Victoria’s coronation jewels. Two pieces have been selected (the South African diamonds and the Williamson brooch) from among the current queen’s personal jewels. And some of the big diamond tiaras are represented, too: Queen Alexandra’s Russian Kokoshnik, the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Delhi Durbar. Photographs of individual pieces are interspersed with portraits of royal women actually wearing the diamonds.
But rather unusually for books on royal jewels, Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration also discusses a few other bejeweled items, including some pieces that would have belonged to male royals. I like this inclusion — jeweled objects are so often overlooked when royal collections are considered, but each of these four pieces (Queen Alexandra’s coronation fan, the Jaipur sword, Frederick the Great’s snuff box, and George IV’s sword) is given the same treatment as the wearable objects, including close-up photographs and provenance information.
Along with the individual entries, de Guitaut also provides a history of diamonds in the royal family’s possession and a helpful glossary of jewel terminology. All in all, while this book is nowhere close to covering the breadth of the diamonds in the royal collection, it’s a carefully and deliberately curated look at some of the most significant pieces owned by the Windsors. For those of us who weren’t lucky enough to visit Buckingham Palace and see the Diamond Jubilee exhibit in person, this little souvenir volume is also our chance to experience a bit of the glitter in our own homes.

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Image of book cover from Amazon.com.

2. Detail of photograph of Elizabeth II, available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.

Birthday Jewels: The Countess of Wessex

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The Earl and Countess of Wessex at Trooping the Colour, June 2013 [1]
Happy birthday to one of the most dependable and lovely members of the British royal family, the Countess of Wessex! It’s tough to believe that Sophie turns 49 today — she somehow seems to look younger with each passing year. (Someone should check the attic at Bagshot Park for a portrait, perhaps?) To celebrate Sophie’s big day, let’s have a look at some of her more affordable jewels: the earrings she wears from Heavenly Necklaces.
Founded in the early 1990s by Belinda Hadden, Heavenly Necklaces specializes in costume jewelry (though they also make pieces with genuine semi-precious stones). You might be surprised that a senior royal like Sophie, who has some major precious jewelry of her own and also often borrows pieces from her mother-in-law’s stupendous collection, would wear costume pieces. But more and more, royals are mixing precious jewels with less expensive pieces. This has been true for years — Diana, Princess of Wales often wore both heirloom and faux jewelry. And there’s a long history of wealthy women ordering costume replicas of their most valuable jewels; some would even wear replica pieces in public, while keeping the real things locked securely away in safes and bank vaults, far from sticky-fingered thieves.
Left: Sophie wears the Non-Drop Drop earrings [2];
Right: the earrings pictured on the HN website [3]
Many of Sophie’s pairs of earrings come from the Heavenly Necklaces collection. At Trooping the Colour last June, she sported a pair of Hadden’s “Non-Drop Drops,” which the website advertises as their third best-selling earrings. They feature a small cubic zirconia stud with a larger circle of cubic zirconias suspended from it. Trooping the Colour is one of the most visible occasions of the year for members of the royal family, and Sophie wore the earrings during both a carriage procession down the Mall and on the famous Buckingham Palace balcony. Sophie also wore the earrings at a Buckingham Palace reception last fall in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who [4]. Sophie has a number of other earrings from the company, including their “Cannes-deliers,” which feature teardrop-shaped cubic zirconias in an articulated pattern [5], and their snowflake earrings, which she wore on an outing at Royal Ascot with her husband and daughter in December [6]. She’s also been photographed in their solitaire drop earrings — she’s definitely a dedicated customer!
Left: Kate wears the Pearl and Diamond earrings [7];
Right: the earrings pictured on the HN website [8]

Both Sophie and her nephew’s wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, have purchased inexpensive jewels from Hadden’s company. In fact, they both own a pair of one of the firm’s most famous pieces: their pearl and diamond drop earrings. These baubles gained public attention when Kate wore them at one of the biggest royal events of 2012: the thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral for Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. After Kate wore the £58 earrings on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, Hadden was inundated with orders. These earrings, which Sophie also wears quite frequently, are perhaps now the most famous item that Heavenly Necklaces makes, so much so that they even garnered a mention in the publication accompanying the “Pearls” exhibition currently on at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

I love precious, rare, heirloom royal jewels as much as the next person (honestly, probably way more than the next person, really), but I also find the use of costume jewelry refreshing. Sometimes it’s nice to salivate over a piece of jewelry, only to discover that you can afford to purchase it for your own collection. If you’d like to see more of these Heavenly Necklaces pieces in action, I’d highly recommend visiting Anna’s sites, My Small Obsessions and HRH Countess of Wessex. She’s the resident expert on Sophie’s jewels on the ‘net today, and she also has a small collection of Heavenly Necklaces pieces of her own. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I just need to go decide which of their pieces I need to add to my own jewelry box…

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped version of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
2. Cropped version of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
3. Cropped version of photograph available at the Heavenly Necklaces website.
4. See photographs here at the Mail Online website.
5. See Anna’s My Small Obsessions facebook page for photos.
6. See photographs here at the Hello! website.
7. Cropped version of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
8. Cropped version of photograph available at the Heavenly Necklaces website.

British Royal Gifts 2013

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The British royal family attends Trooping the Colour, June 2013 [1]
Every January, the three major British royal palace offices — Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, and Kensington Palace — release lists of the gifts given to senior royals during official engagements. They range from the academic (a copy of a medical journal) to the weird (a garden gnome) to the edible (a chocolate Windsor Castle). But among the lists, you’ll also find a number of sparkling objects. Here’s a rundown of the jewels received by the Windsors in 2013.
Buckingham Palace
Gifts received by Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent, and Princess Alexandra are catalogued and released by Buckingham Palace.
Gifts received by the Queen and Prince Philip included a number of pieces of jewelry:
— From the President of the United Arab Emirates, a five-strand pearl necklace

— From the President of the United Arab Emirates, a gold jeweled photograph frame set on a jeweled ostrich egg

— From the High Commissioner of Bangladesh, four enameled scarab beetles
— From the Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan, a diamond and tourmaline brooch (see a photo here) [2]

— From the Newhaven Chamber of Commerce, a gold rose tie pin

Buckingham Palace has not released the full lists of gifts received by the royals. Early yesterday, the lists were published by the Telegraph, but they were later removed.
Clarence House
Gifts received by the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, and Prince Harry are all catalogued and released by the press office at Clarence House [3]. They only release information about gifts received during foreign trips.
Harry didn’t receive any jewels (sadly for him), but his father and stepmother received a number of pieces:
— From HH Maharaja Manujendra Shah and Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah, a silver and turquoise octagonal box
— From the President of Sri Lanka, a pair of cufflinks

— From the Kudumbashree Rural Project, a pair of earrings
— From a private individual, a faux pearl necklace
— From the pupils from The Mahis Secondary School for Girls, a craft bracelet
— From HH Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser, an obsidian and enamel box
— From HM King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, a parure
— From HM The Sultan of Oman, a necklace

— From a private individual, two pairs of cufflinks, two tie pins and three pin badges

— From a private individual, a pewter tie pin
— From a private individual, a pair of cufflinks
— From a private individual, two seed necklaces
— From a private individual, a lapel pin
— From a private individual, a briefcase containing a pen, a tie and jewelry

There’s been no other details about the big jewelry item on this list: the parure gifted to Camilla by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Here’s hoping we learn more about this suite of jewelry soon!

Kensington Palace
While last year’s list of royal gifts was full of presents for the yet-to-be-born Prince George, William and Kate made no overseas visits this year, so they’re not included on any of the 2013 gifts lists. That should change next year, as the family is prepping for a visit to Australia in 2014.

It’s worth noting that all of the gifts listed above are not the private, personal possessions of the royals who receive them. They can’t sell them, but they can wear and display them — and in the case of jewels, thank goodness for that!

NOTES, PHOTO CREDITS, AND LINKS
1. Cropped version of photograph available via Wikimedia Commons; source here.
2. The brooch was made by Rachel Mielke for Hillberg & Berk on a commission from the lieutenant governor. The floral piece features Madagascar tourmaline petals, lined with diamonds, surrounding a freshwater pearl. The brooch is set in eighteen-carat gold. Read more about the piece here and here.
3. For a full list of gifts, visit the media page at the Prince of Wales’s website.