The Court Jeweller

Sparkling Royal Jewels From Around the World

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. 
Wikimedia Commons
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!

The Best Royal Jewels of 2019: #6 (Lady Gabriella’s Windsor Wedding)

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CHRIS JACKSON/AFP/Getty Images
She may not be a princess, but Lady Gabriella Windsor looked exceptionally royal in her family wedding tiara this May…
#6: Lady Gabriella’s Windsor Wedding

Andrew Parsons – WPA Pool/Getty Images

Lady Gabriella, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, married Thomas Kingston at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle in a glittering ceremony in May.

Andrew Parsons – WPA Pool/Getty Images

Ella wore an heirloom tiara, the Kent City of London Fringe, as a bridal diadem. The jewel was one of the gifts given to Ella’s grandmother, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, when she married Prince George, Duke of Kent in 1934.

PA Images/Alamy

The tiara has been used as a bridal diadem twice before by Kent family brides. In 1963, Princess Alexandra of Kent wore the fringe tiara for her wedding to Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey.

Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy

And Ella’s mother, Marie-Christine, wore the tiara for the reception held after her wedding to Prince Michael of Kent in Vienna in 1978. They are the current owners of the tiara.

Chris Jackson – WPA Pool/Getty Images

Ella’s family, as well as the extended Kent clan, turned out in large numbers for her wedding.

Frank Augstein – WPA Pool/Getty Images

Ella’s first cousin, once removed — the Queen — attended in one of the late Queen Mother’s dazzling diamond brooches. (More on the brooch, and all the royal jewels worn for the occasion, over here!)

The Best Royal Jewels of 2019: #7 (Royal Fabergé in the Spotlight)

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Photo generously shared with us by Jeanne; do not reproduce
2019 has been a banner year for royal jewelry auctions, but few sales drummed up as much interest as a pair of Fabergé tiaras…
#7: Royal Fabergé in the Spotlight

Sotheby’s
Examples of tiaras made by the Faberge workshop are rare, and to have to royal ones come to the market in the same year is astounding. The first was this diamond kokoshnik-style tiara, made in 1903. Two years later, the sparkler was given as a wedding present to Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on her marriage to Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany. The tiara was a gift from her Russian relatives.
The tiara’s most prominent royal appearance came in 1949, when Crown Princess Cecilie’s daughter, Princess Cecilie of Prussia, married an American designer, Clyde Harris. The younger Cecilie wore the tiara on her wedding day at Hohenzollern Castle.
Sotheby’s
The tiara was sold by Sotheby’s in Geneva on May 14, exceeding its auction estimate by fetching more than $430,000.
Christie’s
The day after Crown Princess Cecilie’s Faberge tiara was sold, another fantastic tiara from the jeweler was offered at auction. This spectacular diamond and aquamarine tiara was made by Faberge in 1904. It was also a wedding present, offered to Princess Alexandra of Hanover by her new husband, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. (Friedrich Franz and Cecilie, the owner of the diamond tiara, were siblings.)
Grand Ladies Site
Grand Duchess Alexandra wore her new tiara for the first time at a court ball held shortly after her wedding, and she posed for portraits in the sparkler around the same time. The tiara was inherited by her descendants after her death in 1963.
Christie’s
Christie’s sold the tiara in Geneva on May 15, and when the hammer fell, the tiara fetched more than a million dollars. While we don’t know who bought Crown Princess Cecilie’s tiara, we do know who bought Grand Duchess Alexandra’s: Dorothy and Artie McFerrin, who own one of the largest private collections of Fabergé in North America.
Photo generously shared with us by Jeanne; do not reproduce
The McFerrins have generously placed much of their collection on display in a permanent gallery at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and the diamond and aquamarine tiara has now joined the exhibition. One of our lovely readers, Jeanne, has kindly shared this photo of the tiara on display in its new home. It sits between two other excellent examples of tiaras by Faberge: the Leuchtenberg Fabergé Tiara, once owned by Queen Marie-Jose of Italy, and the Westminster Blue Enamel Kokoshnik.