The Queen’s Jewels – Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Tribute
When she was born, Princess Elizabeth received every little girl’s christening presents: coral and pearl bead necklaces with new stones added each birthday (a tradition the Queen continued for Princess Anne).
For her 18th birthday, her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (now the Queen Mother), gave their daughter sleek modern jewellery: a pair of aquamarine and diamond clips and a diamond bracelet from Cartier.
It was Princess Elizabeth’s 21st birthday and a royal family tour of South Africa in 1947 that started a torrent of gifts, which has swelled over the years until the walls of the royal jewel stores are groaning with golden keys to cities, loose stones, not to mention the Fabergé menagerie collected by Queen Alexandra.
Diamonds
A fabulous early gift was the Williamson Pink diamond, given by an eccentric Canadian millionaire as a wedding present. The Queen later had it made into a flower brooch by Cartier, but it never seemed to have the emotional resonance of the diamond and platinum flame lily brooch, given to the Princess by Southern Rhodesian schoolchildren for her 21st birthday and worn on her black coat when she returned from Kenya after the death of her father.
On her marriage, her parents gave their daughter a suite of oblong Victorian sapphires and a ruby and diamond bandeau necklace. But the line between public and private was already blurred, for she also received Crown pearls that had originally belonged to the Hanoverian Queen Caroline and the Stuart Queen Anne.
The Queen’s accession to the throne, followed almost immediately by Queen Mary’s death, brought serious jewels – both state and personal. What is the status of the two categories?
