Queen Victoria’s Hesse Diamond Jubilee Brooch

Today marks the Anniversary of the death of Queen Victoria, who died on this day in 1901. While we have already covered her Top 20 Jewels last year, we still have quite a few to go, so today we are taking a look at Queen Victoria’s Hessian Diamond Jubilee Brooch.

A magnificent brooch in the shape of an open heart, with the number sixty in Slavonic characters, wrought in diamonds, surrounded by a diamond heart with a cabochon sapphire at the top and two sapphire pendants, was a Diamond Jubilee Gift to Queen Victoria from her Hessian grandchildren, the surviving children of her late daughter Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse: the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine,  The Tsar and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, Grand Duke Serge and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, and Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg, in 1897, and displayed at the Imperial Institute in London.

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The piece was bequeathed to Princess Christian, some of whose jewels ended up with the Queen Mother and are now with the Queen. The Brooch remained publicly unworn for more than a century until being worn by the Duchess of Cornwall on her 2007 visit to the United States. The Duchess has continued to wear Queen Victoria’s Hessian Diamond Jubilee Brooch and it was also displayed at Buckingham Palace last year.

Queen Camilla wore Queen Victoria’s Hesse Diamond Jubilee Brooch for the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey.

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