Christmas Tiaras? Queen Victoria's Emerald and Diamond Tiara and the Oriental Circlet Ruby Tiara!

I don't know what's on your Christmas list this year, but for me, I would absolutely love and adore to have a tiara. Yes, oh yes. To have a tiara would be the greatest gift of all. But so far, I do not have one, but I thought it would be fun today to look at two tiaras. One is an emerald and one is a ruby tiara that were both owned by Queen Victoria in honor of Christmas because they are green and red, y'all. Yes, I know, it's a bit of a stretch, but I could not find anything when I Googled Christmas tiara. There may be some sort of connection there, but since we don't have it, we're instead going to talk about these lovely, gorgeous pieces that are well over 150 years old, and some of them are the most beautiful pieces within royal collection. So without further ado, let's get started with our first tiara. Now this one, I have to say, when I looked at it, I could not find an official name for it. So we are just gonna call it the emerald and diamond tiara or maybe the Victoria emerald and diamond tiara, and this one you can see right now in Kensington Palace. Yes, oh yes, it is a stunning piece, and you also get to see the matching necklace and earrings. So there are officially 19 emeralds in this tiara, and the largest is 15 carats, and it was first made in 1845, and it went along with a group of gifts to Victoria by her husband, Albert, because he gave her an engagement ring with her birthstone, which was emerald, and then he ended up giving her an additional set, an emerald, in 1843, with a matching necklace, earrings, and brooch, and then in 1845, he went on to design the tiara, and it is a stunning piece that she officially wore in the Windhalter's 1846 painting with her family, which you can currently see on display in Buckingham Palace when it is open, which is not all that often. And looking at these emerald pieces, there is obviously the largest one within the tiara itself, but there's also a pendant that is 20 carats, and apparently, this tiara has some of the greatest quality emeralds that have been seen by Sotheby's. It's perhaps, they said, ones that they'll never see again. And this tiara is very special, too, because it was designed by Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, and was made by Joseph Kitching for 1,150 pounds. Now, if this tiara was only worth that much today, that would be amazing. And she wrote, in regards to this tiara, this lovely diadem of diamonds and emeralds designed by my lovely Albert, and she also praised his wonderful taste, which is lovely. And she left this tiara to her granddaughter, Princess Alexandra, the Duchess of Fife. And technically, sort of, although I'm still not entirely sure how this all came together, it still has strong connections with the family, except it doesn't. So, I'm not sure the exact details, but apparently this tiara is on loan as part of an agreement with the government over inheritance taxes. When it comes to tiaras and jewelry, we talked about this before. Inheritance taxes can destroy royal collections because you leave these tiaras and then you have to pay taxes on them. And most royal families or aristocratic families oftentimes are not cash-infused. They have a lot of things of monetary value, but they don't have a lot of cash on hand. And most of their money is tied up in lands, in portraits and paintings and furniture and jewelry. And so, if they can't pay the inheritance taxes, then basically their whole family estate is almost wiped out. And I feel like it is a very bad thing because a lot of cultural heritage ends up leaving the country because outsiders, foreigners, and those sorts of things buy it. So, apparently there is some sort of agreement in place where the tiara and the Fife tiara and a fringe tiara are all on display at Kensington Palace by the Fife family. So, the last time we actually saw this tiara in person on somebody was in 1960 at the opening of Parliament. And so, I don't know if we will ever see this tiara again. I hope strongly that perhaps it makes its way back into the royal family. I think that would be incredible because emeralds are a very delicate stone and there's not a ton of emeralds out there. And I actually don't think the Brits have an emerald tiara. So, this would be a perfect addition. And I forgot to mention as well, when it comes to the earrings, what's rather interesting is that there is one that is an actual emerald and one that is a synthetic one. So, sometime between the 1840s and probably today, probably most likely in the late 1800s, early 1900s, the stone had been broken in some way or stolen or what have you. And so, they had to replace it with a synthetic one. And what I love about looking at this emerald tiara, I took a couple of these pictures and you can see actually how damaged the emerald is, which I think is really cool, or how scratched up it is. And it just shows, again, the continuity, the context of time. And again, emeralds are very delicate. So, if they drop, they don't bounce like a diamond would, they actually shatter. So, it's entirely possible somebody was cleaning this, accidentally dropped the emerald and shattered it. And you just can't get quality emeralds anymore. They're very hard to come by. You'll find most of the time, emeralds are from laboratories. They're not actually real emeralds. If you find something that isn't real emerald, it is very, very, very, very expensive. So, this is quite a quality piece. And I do have to say, if you are looking for even a Christmas present for yourself, or something upcoming in the holidays, and you love things that sparkle, I can't recommend enough Ana Lucia Diamonds. They have gorgeous, lab-created diamonds. And it can give you that little bit of sparkle that you want and need in your life. I love them. So, if you guys are interested in some amazing pieces, there is a link down below. And if you use my code, REAL20, you get 20% off. So, you can glitter like these gorgeous tiaras also glitter. Okay, so next tiara we're gonna talk about, because we're moving from emeralds and green to Christmas red and rubies. And in this time, we're talking about the Oriental Circlet Tiara. And this is another one designed by Albert for his wife. But it was actually rather different than what we have now. So, just to give you an idea of the design, it originally included 17 Mongol arches and lotus flowers of an Eastern design. He was very much inspired by the Great Exhibition and the Indian jewels that were presented to Queen Victoria. So, he designed this tiara and was made by Gerard in 1853. And it originally had opals and diamonds in it, not rubies. And when it comes to the diamonds, there's actually a little bit of a peculiar incident. Because yes, believe it or not, royal families did file lawsuits with each other over diamonds. And this was the case for some of the Hanover diamonds that were originally in this tiara. They sued and they actually got them back. So, this tiara had been made and then they had to remove some of the diamonds to send them back to Hanover in Germany. And so, in order to fill out the rest of the tiara, they used diamonds from the royal collection and they purchased some new ones. So, when Queen Victoria died, she left this tiara to the crown for future queens and queen consorts to use. And the first queen who got her hands on this, after Victoria, was Queen Alexandra. And she ended up having the opals removed because she thought they were bad luck. And so, she replaced them with rubies from Burma so that it says modern day Myanmar. And she had the size reduced as well. So, we went from 17 arches to 11 arches. And it was still a full circle. And you can see actually how big it is when you see it on Queen Elizabeth, the queen mother. And these rubies were actually given to Queen Victoria in the 1870s. So again, these are all historic pieces. That's what I find so cool about royal tiaras is all the history connected, not only with the tiara itself, but with the jewelry that makes up the tiara. Because oftentimes, they're very old pieces that have been around in the family for a really long time. And so, this tiara was never pictured on Queen Alexandra or Queen Mary. And y'all know Queen Mary, she was the queen of tiaras. So, that she didn't wear this tiara is a little bit unusual. So, its next prominent wearer, of course, was Queen Elizabeth, the queen mother. And this was her favorite tiara. She wore this so much that even after her husband died, Elizabeth, her daughter, allowed her to continue to wear it. And she didn't ask for it back, which is why we have the Burmese ruby tiara, which is a very much inferior addition to that. Because the queen used some rubies that she got, again, from Burma after her coronation or wedding. I can't remember which. I think it was coronation. And she created that particular tiara. And after the death of the queen mother, Queen Elizabeth actually wore this tiara only one single time. And that was to the state visit to Malta. So, I am a little bit bummed now that I'm thinking about that Queen Camilla chose the Burmese ruby tiara over this particular tiara because it's been so long since we've seen the oriental circlet. And it was actually on display. And just to give you an idea, it was made up of 2,600 diamonds and made for only 860 pounds. And there was also an addition to the tiara, I guess, where they could remove some things and replace them with large single diamonds, although that configuration has never been seen. And honestly, I couldn't quite picture what they were, how they described it. It wasn't very clear. So, I can't give you exact details on what it might have looked like. And there was also an opal necklace attached to it as well. And I'm wondering if the necklace Queen Elizabeth is wearing in Malta is that necklace obviously replacing the opals with rubies. So, guys, that is it for this Christmas-themed episode of Tiara Tuesday. I hope you love these absolutely gorgeous pieces. And I look forward to bringing you guys more stories about these amazing tiaras into the new year. And next week, we'll be doing the top 10 tiara moments of 2023. I did this video last year. I'm looking forward to doing it this year because we've definitely had at least one definite, for sure, historic tiara moment this year. And I'm sure when I look back again, I might find a couple more and just some amazing looks. So, guys, thank you so much for watching. I look forward to seeing you again soon. Bye. We don't count the carats. We count the centuries.