Let’s be honest: tiaras are wonderful. Tiaras are jewel conduits, they are sparkly and few accessories can top them. And unless you happen to run in particularly royal circles, you probably aren’t seeing them frequently. On my last trip to the UK, I had the chance to see four different tiaras- I could certainly die happily now. And one is a tiara that I’ve been dying to see for ages, a bucket list tiara if you will. I was lucky enough to see the Grand Duchess Vladimir tiara at the Russia: Royalty and the Romanovs exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery in London, and I’ll be sharing some of its history with you today!
The Grand Duchess Vladimir tiara is in the Queen’s personal jewellery collection; she could loan it out to other royals in the family, but it belongs to her. (As opposed to the state jewels, which don’t belong to her.) However, this is one tiara that seems to only be worn by the Queen herself. We have also seen it on Queen Mary, who originally acquired it. But how did Queen Mary come to acquire this stunning tiara?
The information included in this post is from: Field, Leslie. The Queens Jewels: the Personal Collection of Elizabeth II. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1987.
How Did the British Royals End Up with the Tiara?
Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch (brother to Alexander III and uncle to Nicholas II) married a German Princess in 1874. By 1890, the Grand Duchess was firmly entrenched in her role, and “commissioned a Russian jeweller to make her a diamond tiara of fifteen interlaced circles, with a swinging oriental pearl suspended in each.” (Queen’s Jewels, 116.) The Duke died in 1908, luckily (??) missing the Russian Revolution. The Grand Duchess escaped from Russia in 1919 with a small number of jewels in a horse-drawn carriage. Fortunately, she had walled up many of her jewels at Vladimir Palace before escaping, and an Englishman (with the help of her loyal servants) was able to rescue them. Although she sadly died in 1920, the jewels were divided up amongst her children with the tiara going to her daughter, Princess Nicholas of Greece. Queen Mary purchased the tiara from her in 1921. She also swapped out the fifteen pearls with the last of the Cambridge emeralds (in case pearls aren’t your style.
And if you are interested in more tiaras (aren’t we all), visit my Victoria Revealed post for some of Queen Victoria’s pieces!
Have you seen the Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara in person?
Cheers,
The Historian
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