Focus on... Kent Jewels: The Flower Brooch

This lovely flower brooch is worn not by one but three different royal ladies.

Princess Michael's Purple Flower Brooch

The brooch is in form of a flower with five petals, with a diamond cluster in the middle and five pearls between the petals. It may be Kiki McDonough creation, although there is no confirmation.

Dutch Royal Jewels: The Mellerio Ruby Parure

The Dutch Royals have arguably the best collection of ruby jewellery the European Royal Houses. Apart from various separate jewels, they actually have two complete ruby parures – the Peacock Parure and this Mellerio Ruby Parure.

The Mellerio Ruby Tiara

In 1889, King Willem III commissioned Mellerio to create a parure as a 30th birthday present to his second wife, Queen Emma. Originally, the French jeweller intended to use sapphires but in the end it was decided that rubies would look more fetching with the general design. 

Dutch Royal Jewels: Queen Emma’s Diamond Tiara

Queen Emma’s Diamond Tiara was commissioned by King William III of the Netherlands for his second wife, Queen Emma in 1890.

Queen Emma's Diamond Tiara

It was created by Royal Begeer and specifically designed to be able to incorporate the five of the six 12-pointed stars Queen Emma had received as a wedding gift in 1879 from her new relatives, the Von Wieds. The sixth star was left to be used as a brooch. 

Work on the tiara was finished shortly after the King’s death so the first occasion it was worn to was King Williams funeral. The original tiara consisted of three large centrepieces which could be topped with the star ornaments. At some point some minor adjustments were made and the large diamond buttons in the centre of each piece were made detachable. Usually, only the central stone is replaced with a ruby; however, Queen Beatrix is known to have swapped diamonds for rubies in all three.

Dutch Royal Jewels: Queen Juliana’s Aquamarine Tiara and Parure

The Dutch Royal House has, in my opinion, one of the most stunning aquamarine jewellery collections. And since I happen to be a huge fan of the stone, I just couldn’t possibly miss the opportunity to cover the wonderful gems. Since most (if not all) of those jewels come from Queen Juliana’s collection, I count them all as one giant parure.

Queen Juliana's Aquamarine Tiara

The collection started nearly 90 years ago, in 1927; Princess Juliana received from her parents an art deco tiara made of Brazilian aquamarines and diamonds in a platinum frame. The base of the tiara is set with square-cut aquamarines with seven larger aquamarine briolette drops on the top. The tiara was created by the Kempen, Begeer & Vos.

Dutch Royal Jewels: The Pearl Button Tiara

The origins of the tiara go back to the first half of 19th century; when Sophie of Wurttemberg married William III of the Netherlands (then a Crown Prince), she brought with her a large number of jewels.

The Pearl Button Tiara

Among them was a Strawberry Leaf Coronet which is purported to be the base of the Pearl Button Tiara. I used the term purported because the base of the coronet (as seen in Queen Sophie’s portraits) and the base of the current tiara look markedly different to me. If you squint hard you can sort of see distant similarities so I guess it’s possible the base of the original tiara was changed over the decades so much it’s barely recognisable now.