Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik

Today marks the 80th Anniversary of the Death of Queen Marie of Romania, and we are taking a look at her trademark Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik, which started up in Russia, went to Romania, then Austria, and finally the United States.

Commissioned by Grand Duchess Vladimir from Cartier in 1909, the Kokoshnik Tiara featured a large 137.2 carat cushion cut sapphire and six cabochon sapphires that had belonged to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia.

The Grand Duchess notably wore the piece for a grand portrait, along with a host of other large sapphire pieces.

When she fled St. Petersburg following the February Revolution in 1917, the Jewels of the Grand Duchess Vladimir remained in a hidden safe in her bedroom at the Vladimir Palace, until her son, Grand Duke Boris, and a friend, Bertie Stopford, snuck into the Vladimir Palace disguised as workmen, smuggling the Jewels out in a pair of Gladstone Bags, which were then smuggled out of Russia, deposited in a safety deposit box in London. An inventory taken by Garrard in early 1920 revealed that the Vladimir Tiara was damaged during its journey, with some of the pearls and diamonds missing. The Grand Duchess Vladimir was the last Romanov to escape Russia, and passed away just a few months later, in September 1920. Grand Duchess Vladimir left her jewels to her children in groups of stones, with Grand Duke Kyril receiving the Sapphires, Grand Duke Boris the EmeraldsGrand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna, Princess Nicholas of Greece, the only daughter, inherited her mother’s diamonds and pearls, including the Vladimir Tiara, while Grand Duke Andrei inherited the Rubies, which included the Ruby Kokoshnik.

Faced with harsh financial difficulties in exile, the couple decided to sell the family jewels. Luckily for Princess Victoria Melita, a buyer was close at hand, Queen Marie of Romania, her sister, had lost her jewels in Russia during WWI. Queen Marie wrote to their mother, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna:

I spoke to Ducky about some of Aunt Miechen’s jewellery that Ducky wants to sell as these pieces represent the only fortune the family has left – thank God that the jewels of the old lady are fabulous! She was an extraordinarily greedy woman and she received, throughout her entire life, more than her share of anything. Nando gave me a generous sum of money to buy jewellery, since mine are lost forever… It is however a horrible feeling to take these treasures from a person I love more than anything in the world. But at the same time I know that I am a gift from God to her, as I am ready to pay for the pieces in full and right away without negotiating the prices. Oh, and heaven, these jewels are wonderful, as seldom one can find!”

Queen Marie bought the Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik for herself, Ducky’s Greek Key Tiara for Princess Helen of Greece, the soon-to-be Romanian Crown Princess, and her Cartier Sapphire Sautoir for her eldest daughter, Princess Elisabeth, who was about to marry Princess Helen’s brother, King George II of Greece.

Queen Marie of Romania loved the Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik and it became her trademark tiara, well suited to her fairytale-like tastes. She notably wore it for a variety of portraits, her Coronation, and in her painting by Phillip Lazlo. In 1931, she gave the Kokoshnik as a wedding gift to her youngest and favourite daughter, Princess Ileana, when she married Archduke Anton of Austria, but also wore it at the Silver Jubilee of King George V in 1935, as Ileana recalled:

I lent it to her to wear at the Jubilee of King George V of England, and she left it in her bank in London because of unsettled conditions at home. After her death I had no small trouble in claiming it, but I got it away from England just before World War II actually began.

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In 1935, the Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik was among the Jewels displayed at an Exhibition of Russian Art in London, along with the Vladimir Fringe TiaraQueen Alexandra’s Amethyst Tiara, Princess Mary’s Russian Sapphire Devant de Corsage and Queen Olga’s Diamond Rivière.

Princess Ileana talked about rarely wearing the Tiara in the early years of her marriage in her  memoir ‘I Live Again’:

I myself wore the lovely sapphire and diamond tiara on only one state occasion, and that was at a large ball which the Legitimist Party gave in the Hofburg in Vienna, four years after I was married.

She loaned it back to Queen Marie to wear at King George V’s Silver Jubilee in London, where it stayed in a bank vault until after her death, and made escapes from Austria and Romania, where Princess Ileana and her family escaped to in 1944, living at the famous Bran Castle.

Princess Ileana recalled wearing the Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik for Christmas at Schloss Sonnberg in Austria in 1943:

We had the large tree in the castle, and the village children and as many officers and soldiers as we could manage were invited to share it. To make the occasion as festive as possible we all dressed in our best, and I wore the lovely sapphire and diamond diadem because so much of the time my family and my household of soldiers saw me only in traveling clothes or nurse’s uniform. There were carols, and gifts, and the joy of the children, which triumphed for a brief time over the thought of a world at war-and another year had come to a close.

One I remember was a servant girl working for a Viennese woman who had come in distress to live at Sonnberg. I had in-sisted, over the protests of her mistress, that the Russian girl be invited to that last Christmas tree in the castle, where I wore the diadem. She had surprised everyone by suddenly bursting into tears, and when she could control herself she explained in broken German that her parents had–safely hidden away from the Com-munists-a picture of the Czarina wearing just such a diadem, and that I reminded her of it, and of her home.

Princess Ileana also wore Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik for Christmas at Bran Castle in 1947:

Christmas at Bran was a pleasant one for the children. Anton arrived just in time with surprises and gifts bought in Switzerland, and also with unobtainable necessities for the hospital which he had been able to find for me. There were the usual celebrations, and for the very last time I wore my beautiful sapphire and diamond diadem.

On Christmas Eve I laid aside my familiar red uniform and its white apron and coif, and I put on a silver evening gown with a little clinging train. I took my remaining jewels out of their hiding place —

my mother’s beautiful sapphire and diamond diadem, my diamond bracelets, the great diamond cross hung on my grandmother’s ropes of pearls, my diamond and ruby earrings.

I put them on.

How strange and unfamiliar I looked, staring back at myself from my dressing room mirror. I knew that I was looking at a ghost from the past as I surveyed my splendor. (Did I know it was the last time? How did I know?…)

Perhaps because it was the last Christmas in Romania, that day stands out clearly to me, not for any special event, but because every minute since then has made it dearer to me. The snow was deep and crunched underfoot; the sky was full of stars; the songs of the children were clear and joyful; all faces seemed to smile and love one another; the gifts had been made with care and forethought. It was one of those times which warm the heart and make it content.

In 1948, her nephew, King Michael, abdicated and the family were exiled again, this time ending up in Argentina, where it again made a daring escape. In 1950, Princess Ileana traveled with the Kokoshnik to United States, wrapped in nightgown because she was too poor to insure it. She then sold it back to Cartier to build a new life for herself and her children, eventually becoming a nun. Princess Ileana said:”It was both beautiful and splendid, but my children were in need. As it stood, it neither fed us nor clothed us nor warmed us. I could not even wear it.” The Kokoshnik was probably broken up and has disappeared into the pages of history. She recalled:

There is one thing I cannot show you, one very important thing which I was allowed to bring with me from my old life, and which made the foundation of my new one. You can see it in a photograph of my mother there on the table [a photograph of Princess Ileana wearing this tiara appears on Page 44—ED.], but no picture can give you any idea of the living glow and the rainbow fires in the sapphire-and-diamond tiara she is wearing.

“A tiara!” you say. “Now that is what one expects of a princess!”

Yes, I can agree with you. This was truly a royal diadem. Nicholas I of Russia had it made for his wife when he became emperor in 1825. Through his granddaughter, my mother’s mother, it descended eventually to me. My mother wore it at her coronation in 1922. She chose it, also, to wear on state occasions during the visit she made to this country. And so the tiara and I both entered the United States twice, and together. My mother had given it to me when I was married in 1931. I lent it to her to wear at the Jubilee of King George V of England, and she left it in her bank in London because of unsettled conditions at home. After her death I had no small trouble in claiming it, but I got it away from England just before World War II actually began. I kept it in Austria until 1943, when I smuggled it into Romania, and from there I saved it from the communists when I left in 1948. It went to Switzerland with me, and then to Argentina, where I pawned it to put money into an unfortunate business that failed. Its adventures as a single piece of jewelry were then almost over, for it became evident that I must try to sell it in order to pay our debts.

Because by this time I was suffering severely from arthritis, I received permission in May, 1950, to come to the United States for medical treatment. As I gathered all my forces, physical and financial, to make this trip, I felt desperately that I was nearing the end of my endurance. I pawned everything I had of value in order to leave my family in Buenos Aires the money to live on, and in order to redeem the tiara. I could not afford to insure something whose “breakup” value had once been appraised at $80,000, so I decided to wrap it in my nightgown and keep it with me in a small bag. Thus with $300, a ticket to Boston and a hidden tiara, I prepared to enter the United States for the second time.

It was a thirty-hour trip by air—over the Andes and finally over the Caribbean—and I had plenty of time to think. Bursitis in my left arm made me barely able to move it, and my back and feet were one continual ache from arthritis.

Six months earlier my two older children had received scholarships in preparatory schools—one in Pennsylvania and one in Massachusetts—and their letters had been showing a growing confidence and contentment. For most of their lives they had been the victims of war and its accompanying anxieties, first in their father’s homeland and then in mine, and the younger children could not remember any other conditions. My husband and I had sought security and a new life for them in Switzerland and then in Argentina, but we had not found it. Could it be that somehow, in the friendly country I had visited as a girl, I might find a new home for them? What princess who is also a mother would not give up a diadem to gain a home for her children!

Anxious, weary, in pain but strangely hopeful, I finally arrived in Miami, where the long flight was interrupted. I lined up for customs inspection. When it was my turn and I answered that I had something to declare, I asked if I could unpack my bag in private. The officer was good-humored, but a little impatient with my hesitation. When I insisted, he made it clear that he thought I was being a nuisance.

“What have you got there, anyway—a corpse?” he asked.

However, when he finally led me to an office it was obvious that he did not know quite what to do when a tiara turned up in the luggage he inspected. He touched the central sapphire a little gingerly. Since it weighed 125 carats, itwas nearly the size of a man’s pocket watch. Was it real? he wanted to know. When I assured him that it was, he looked still more harassed, but finally he decided that he would send it to Boston “in bond.” Together we wrapped it in a newspaper and put it into a box, which he duly sealed and ticketed. It was with a qualm, I confess, that I watched it put into the luggage compartment of the plane for Boston before I myself embarked. If it should somehow be lost, I was losing everything I had, and it was now out of my hands!

ARRIVING in Boston, I was told that since it was Sunday, all offices were closed, and I would have to wait to claim my “package.” I knew no one in Boston except the friend who, with her husband’s help, had arranged for me to come to this country. Since she could not be sure of the time of my arrival, I was to let her know when I got to the airport. I found a telephone and stood looking at it stupidly, giddy from my thirty hours’ flight and full of pain: I had no idea how to use a dial telephone, but I was in the United States, where people are kind. A friendly gentleman found the Number for me and called my friend. While I waited for her to come and fetch Ins I tried to forget my anxiety by looking back across the years since I had seen her—twenty-five, to be exact.

I had been fifteen years old then, learning my way in social work, and an enthusiastic member of the Romanian Girl Reserves. Helen Jackson—dark-haired, with a gay, round face and twinkling eyes—had come to Bucarest to help start the industrial section of the Y.W.C.A. there. Her song§ and fun put us all at ease, and I loved the opportunities to be with her group of girls. Helen, her job completed, left Bucarest to carry on elsewhere; I grew up; the years passed with their joys and griefs. She was now Mrs. John Beale, with hair turned gray, but kindness still unchanged.

Helen and Jack Beale opened the doors of their home to me until I found a home of my own. They drove me to Newton along the Charles River, and I found it beautiful—so green and sunny, so clean and free. Then and there I fell in love with New England.

In the joy of seeing my two older children again—so changed and grown in the months they had been away—in the need of rest and immediate medical care at the Lahey Clinic (once I had found a temporary haven, I seemed for a time almost to collapse from the long anxiety I had suffered), the diadem was temporarily pushed to the back of my mind. When I did think of it, I felt confident of its safety in this friendly country.

Ten days of rest and hospital treatment made me able to find my way to the customhouse and inquire for my “parcel.” It took some time for the officials to trace it, and I felt some stabs of alarm until it was finally located in a safe in another building.

Everyone was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing, both then and the next day, when we all met by appointment in an office of the customhouse. Everyone was very matter-of-fact until the parcel was opened, and the officials saw what had been lying about the office for ten days—for even I, who was so familiar with it, felt always a thrill of delight at the radiance of blue-and-white fire when the tiara was suddenly brought into the light.

The faces of the men revealed their shocked amazement. They gasped. Then one smiled, relieved.

“But of course you have this insured!” he said.

“No,” I told him calmly. “Why should I? It has escaped the Nazis and the communists. Naturally I did not expect to lose it here!”

They were evidently uncertain whether to laugh or to scold me; but from that moment we were friends! One of the men asked me to autograph a visitors’ register he kept—”with all your titles and things!” he explained; and I was tempted to draw him a little sketch of the tiara as a souvenir. The age of the jewel was found to make it free of customs, so eventually I walked off with it under my arm—still in its somewhat battered cardboard box—and I mailed the package to a jeweler in New York. Finally, it was sold for a sum much below its value. It was both beautiful and splendid, but my children were in need. As it stood, it neither fed nor clothed nor warmed us. I could not even wear it’

18

Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik

Romanian Massin Tiara

Fringe Tiara

Diamond Loop Tiara

Cartier Pearl Tiara

Cartier Sapphire Pendant

Diamond Sautoir

4 thoughts on “Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik

  1. Cartier the maker of the tiara, purchased it at auction. The Sapphires where removed and the tiara is still in existence with paste blue stones to replace the sapphires. Cartier sold the sapphires to a wealthy buyer.

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