Jewellery-British Royal Family.

[DaisyDooley]

This thread is for pictures and question on the JEWELLERY Of the British Royal Family, Past and Current pieces. There may be posts about other Family’s Royal Jewels too.
It is only for discussing Jewels.
No discussions of current members of the RF, no de railing by talking about tax or ownership of certain pieces.
Just lovely pretty Jewels.

No. Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester was the last surviving CHILD of George lll 1776-1857.
The two pictures attached are of her -she is the only child of George lll to be photographed.
The last surviving GRANDCHILD of George lll was ‘Aunt Augusta’ - Queen Mary’s aunt, Princess Augusta of Cambridge 1822-1916 . She was the owner of the ‘OG Lovers knot’ tiara which Queen Mary loved.

Just to add my thanks for the thread too @DaisyDooley - I'm really enjoying it though don't have much to add.

I do like the delicate diamond rose/crescent tiara - does it have a name?

I’ll be covering the Hanover jewellry at some point!
If I do everything at once there’s a risk I’ll miss lovely pieces so I’m just working on ‘themes’ atm and sticking to the British RF.
But I’m DELIGHTED you are looking up people and the families. I find it utterly fascinating (as you may have guessed!!)

Yes it does.
Its The Duchess of Teck Tiara.

@DaisyDooley Thank you so much for this thread. Your approach of themes so you cover all the jewels makes sense and I think we are all happy to follow your lead.

I have posted this on the other style and beauty thread, Amy Farrah Fowler’s reaction in the Big Bang Theory to Sheldon’s gift of a tiara is how I would react. I have absolutely no where to wear one but love them. For me it’s the size of individual gems that I find amazing.

amended for typo

So carrying on the theme of the older pieces lets have a look at the most well known of the older pieces.
We have all seen it 1000 times yet I suspect it’s just never been something that people comment on as much as a tiara,
It’s just ‘there’.
Im talking about the George IV diamond diadem.
Shall we have a bit of history on George?
He was the eldest son of George lll and Charlotte ( of Mecklenberg strelitz)
He was - let’s say a bit of a reprobate.
He liked the finer things in life, had a great eye for art and design and he was a profligate spender. God only knows what internet shopping would have done to him.
He married a Roman Catholic (Mrs Marie Fitzherbert) in her living room after he threatened to kill him self if she didn’t marry him. The marriage wasn’t legal as he hadn’t had the Kings permission and at that time it was forbidden for royalty -especially the Heir -to marry a Roman Catholic.
He eventually married a Protestant , Princess Caroline of Brunswick who according to Blackadder “ She’s famous for having worst personality of anyone in Germany -and as you can imagine that’s up against some pretty stiff competition “.
George got so drunk he fell over while marrying g her and had to be carried to bed. They shared a bed for a week, she fell pregnant and they barely ever saw each other again so deep was their mutual hatred. The child - Princess Charlotte of Wales - died in 1817 during childbirth.
George consoled himself by spending.
Anyway, after his father ‘Mad King George’ died in 1820 George needed to be coronated.
He decided he needed something sparkly to wear to go to his coronation so ordered a diadem from Rundell at the beginning of 1820 and the diadem was finished in May of that year, it incorporated the emblems of England, Scotland and Ireland . The bill for it was £200 for the setting and £800 for the hire of the diamonds. Hiring stones for coronations was common up to 1837. Normally the stones would be removed & returned -but there is no evidence of this in records or by examination of the diadem. A much larger bill of £8,216 appears in accounts of the privy purse which probably accounts for the purchase.
Sadly George wore a huge hat with mahoosive feathers as well as the diadem so I don’t expect many people saw its magnificence,
But, luckily for us it has survived practically intact with just small alterations made in 1838 (QV) 1902 (QA) and 1937 (QEtQM).
The pictures show King George IV, Queens Alexandra, Mary and Ell. Plus close ups of the diadem.
The diadem was included in ‘Heirlooms of the crown’ by QV but I think it’s pretty much considered to be one of the Crown Jewels now (ie owned by the state).

Here is our QEIl wearimg it. The image we all recognise

I love the way if you zoom in you can see the pearls are not all perfectly matched in size. I love the way it’s not quite perfect.

Thank you so much, it's fascinating. So far the Girls of Great Britain and The Duchess of Teck Tiaras are my favourite. I need o go back and refresh my memory on the other pieces

William IV was so appalled by the extravagance of George IV (his older brother)'s coronation that he insisted on things being done far more simply for his own. It was known as the Half-Crown-ation in consequence.

When does a tiara become a diadem I wonder (on a man's head?). I would have described that diadem as a crown. I think I need some form of visual guide!

A diadem, traditionally, totally encircles the head. A tiara sits at the front, and goes about half way round.

This is a bit of a tease, might not come to anything, but here goes…

Earlier this week I went to the Queen Elizabeth II - Her Life In Style exhibition at BP. Highly recommended by the way, well worth an hour or two of your time.

There were tiaras, we saw the Brazilian Aquamarine and the Burmese Ruby, and of course the Fringe tiara with the wedding dress. None of the signage suggested they were replicas so we assumed the real deal.

However, the point of my post is that on the way in we overheard one of the guides say that they were looking forward to the next exhibition which was going to be “sparkly”.

It won’t be for many months as this one runs till March or April 27, but wouldn’t it be lovely if we were treated to some queenie jewels!

I think both the Brazilian Aquamarine and the Burmese Ruby tiaras are hideous. The stones in the BA are just too big and slabby with not enough other stuff round them, and the BR looks like a Christmas decoration.

The aquamarines are gorgeous. I agree that big one in the centre is too much in that setting, but not sure what else you could do with it. It deserves to be seen.

I must admit the Burmese Ruby was a bit Claire’s Accessories. The Fringe looked smaller than I expected.

Yes - I find the huge aquamarine really overpowers the Burmese Aquamarine tiara

My favourite tiara with aquamarines is the Swedish Aquamarine Kokoshnik - which everyone seems to wear at some time. Her on Princess Madeleine

Yes, the next big exho at the King's Gallery will be jewellery. I had an email from the Royal Collection Trust this week, kicking around potential titles for this show.

I agree the Swedish one is lovely, but I like even more the one discussed and pictured here https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/divine-jewels? (you have to scroll a fair way down for the picture of it). It's so simple and elegant, and it belonged to Alexandra Feodorovna - I'd love to know how it survived and ended up in this collection. I saw it in the V&A exhibition earlier this year.

Oh my ! @Lunde
Doesn’t Madeleine look beautiful in that photo.
The aquamarines really enhance her eyes.

I went to the exhibition and loved the jewels on display. A display of jewels would be fantastic.

😍

@KirschcherriesI loved the exhibition, and apart from the obvious stars my favourite pieces were the very heavily embellished State function gowns. The workmanship was phenomenal, I didn’t think I was a Norman Hartnell fan but his attention to detail was superb.

I hope I’m forgiven for derailing, the dresses were very sparkly if that helps!

Fabulous thread thank you @DaisyDooley
your knowledge is 👑 👑 👑

This is the one that was on postage stamps yes? Thanks for the thread, it's so interesting.