Diamond necklace

Jewellery fit for a Queen: Monarch to unveil collection of private treasures like Diamond necklace in time for 2012 Jubilee

By Rebecca English  on 6th May 2011 found at http://www.dailymail.co.uk

The Queen is putting on display some of her most glittering jewels to mark her diamond jubilee.

Treasures including Queen Victoria’s widow crown, the coronation necklace and earrings and the quaintly named Girls of Great Britain tiara will be part of an exhibition at Buckingham Palace in 2012.

Billed as the most spectacular royal collection to be unveiled since the Crown Jewels were put on display, members of the public will be given an unrivalled opportunity to see many of the priceless pieces up close for the first time.

One of the highlights is, undoubtedly, the beautiful miniature crown worn by Queen Victoria for her own official diamond jubilee portrait in 1897 made by Garrard.

It was designed to be worn over the veil she adopted following the death of her husband, Prince Albert.

Although it measures just under four inches high, it contains 1,187 diamonds which give it a grandeur that belies its tiny proportions.

Because of its physical lightness, Queen Victoria favoured it over any other throughout the last 30 years of her life.The Girls of Great Britain Tiara was a wedding present to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck – later Queen Mary – on behalf of the ‘Girls of Great Britain and Ireland’.

A committee of 300 upstanding ladies arranged its purchase via a subscription service but it is not known how much they paid.

The Princess first wore to a ball in 1897 and later gave it to the present Queen as a wedding present.

The Queen's Coronation diamond necklace and earings made in 1858 for Queen Victoria and worn by four different queens at their own coronations, and Queen Victoria's Fringe brooch, right, made two years earlier.

Queen Elizabeth II wears the diamond necklace, above, along with the Imperial State Crown as she and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh wave from the balcony of Buckingham Palace to the crowds after the Coronation

It is one of her favourite piece of jewellery and is, as quaintly put by Royal Collection director Jonathan Marsden yesterday, ‘the one she wears on the notes’.

Other items to go on display next August and September are the magnificent Coronation necklace and earrings created for Queen Victoria and subsequently worn by four different Queens at their own coronations.

The necklace is formed of 25 graduated cushion-shaped brilliant-cut diamonds and a central drop-shaped pendant of 22.48 carats.

There is also Victoria’s dramatic fringed brooch, designed for the fashionably low-cut bodices of the period from diamonds presented to her by the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Med 1 in 1856.  It was worn by the late Queen Mother for her daughter’s coronation in 1953.

The Williamson brooch (named after the Canadian geologist who discovered the main gem) features what is considered to be the finest pink diamond ever discovered.

It was unearthed in Tanzania in 1947 and given to the Queen as a wedding present in November that year who had it incorporated at the heart of a stunning Cartier jonquil-shaped brooch with 200 smaller diamonds.

Treasure: This diamond snuff box made for King Frederick the Great of Prussia, c.1770-75 will be among the attractions

The Royal Collection decided the exhibition would be appropriate in the Queen’s 60th anniversary year as ‘diamonds are the hardest natural material known,  carrying associations of endurance and longevity’.

Several other exhibitions will take place next year to mark the occasion, including: a display of remarkable anatomical drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace; a touring display of other works by the same artist which will take in cities including Bristol, Dundee and Hull; and 60 carefully-chosen informal and unusual press photographs, each to mark a  year of her reign, at Windsor Castle.

Another display at her official residence in Scotland, Holyrood House, will include a Monet bought by the late Queen Mother in 1945. Despite pleading poverty and possessing an infeasibly large overdraft, she was a great collector of art.

Most of the items on display are owned by the Queen on behalf of the nation while others – such as those given to her as wedding presents - are her own, private belongings.

Asked how much the entire collection is worth, the Royal Collection’s Jonathan Marsden said: ‘It’s like asking the weight of the world. Absolutely pointless and impossible to calculate.

‘But it will be a truly spectacular exhibition.’

For more details see www.royalcollection.org.uk

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