The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

The Best Royal Jewels of 2019: #3 (Charlotte’s Wedding Necklace)

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Our countdown of the best royal jewels of the year makes a glittering stop in Monaco…
#3: Charlotte’s Wedding Necklace

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Charlotte Casiraghi, daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco, sparkled in a major Grimaldi family heirloom for the reception following her wedding to Dimitri Rassam in June.

Charlotte wore the necklace with a strapless white gown for a reception following the couple’s June 1 civil wedding ceremony at the Palais Princier. The party was held at the Villa La Vigie, a Monegasque hotel.

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The diamond necklace, made by Cartier, was one of the wedding gifts given to Charlotte’s grandmother, Princess Grace of Monaco, in 1956.

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Princess Grace wore the necklace for the first time at the opera gala held the night before her religious wedding to Prince Rainier III. On that occasion, she paired the necklace with another wedding gift, the Bains de Mer Tiara.

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Since Grace’s death, the necklace has been worn by Charlotte’s mother, Princess Caroline. Above, she wears the jewel for the opera gala on National Day in 2006.

Charlotte became the third generation of the family to wear the necklace, linking Princess Grace’s bejeweled legacy to her grandchildren.

The Best Royal Jewels of 2019: #4 (Sophie’s Tiara Redesigned)

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Our countdown of the best royal jewels of the year rolls on with a major royal tiara overhaul…
#4: Sophie’s Tiara Redesigned

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Sophie Rhys-Jones debuted this unusual diamond tiara on the day that she married the Queen’s youngest son, the Earl of Wessex, in Windsor in 1999.

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The tiara was a gift to the new Countess of Wessex from the Queen, and press reports from the wedding noted that it came from HM’s jewelry collection. The generally accepted theory about the tiara’s provenance is that the piece is composed of four anthemion elements that were originally alternative pieces of Queen Victoria’s Regal Circlet.

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Sophie wore the tiara regularly in the decade that followed her royal wedding, often wearing it abroad at other royal nuptials. Above, she wears the tiara with other diamond jewels for the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden in 2010.

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Even though its elements were likely sourced from a major royal jewel, the tiara’s unusual design was often panned by jewelry lovers. In June 2019, Sophie gave royal watchers a welcome surprise by debuting a brand-new, rearranged version of her wedding tiara. She wore the new setting of the tiara for the first time at the American state banquet. In her latest book, Angela Kelly confirms that the tiara was redesigned ahead of the event by Harry Collins. The timing makes sense, as the banquet took place only a few days before Sophie and Edward’s twentieth wedding anniversary.

The Best Royal Jewels of 2019: #5 (Queen Victoria’s Tiara on Display)

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Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for The Victoria and Albert Museum
Halfway through our countdown of the best royal jewels of the year, we’ve arrived in a particularly sparkly corner of London…
#5: Queen Victoria’s Tiara on Display

The Victoria and Albert Museum
Prince Albert designed this petite sapphire and diamond coronet, which was constructed by Joseph Kitching, for Queen Victoria in 1842. 
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Victoria posed for portraits in the tiny tiara; it was also one of the few pieces of jewelry set with colored stones that she continued to wear after Albert’s death. The coronet was later given by King George V to his only daughter, Princess Mary. Her descendants kept the piece for decades, but in 2016, we learned that the tiara was being sold by an anonymous new owner to an unnamed foreign buyer.
Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for The Victoria and Albert Museum
The government stepped in to prevent the coronet from leaving the country, and it was ultimately purchased by William Bollinger, who gifted it to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We learned about the acquisition in 2017, and the museum’s jewelry gallery was subsequently redesigned ahead of the tiara’s display.
Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for The Victoria and Albert Museum
This year, the gallery officially reopened, with Queen Victoria’s coronet as one of the highlights of the display — just in time for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Victoria and Albert. I know many readers have already managed to make a visit to this important royal jewel!