Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure

Happy Birthday to Queen Silvia of Sweden, who turns 79 today! The German-Brazilian Interpreter who became Queen of Sweden and founded the World Childhood Foundation, Queen Silvia has worn much of the splendid Swedish Royal Collection over the past five decades, but her favourite is the spectacular Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure!

The spectacular Parure consists of a Tiara composed of an ornate diamond base topped by eleven massive sapphires, with a large sapphire and diamonds necklace, a pair of earrings made from two former hairpins, a large brooch, and two hairpins. The frame of the Tiara is quite flexible and can be worn more open as well as closed, like a coronet.

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The Sapphire Parure was Empress Josephine’s gift to her daughter, Princess Augusta, Duchess of Leuchtenberg, on the birth of her third child and first son, Prince Auguste, the 2nd Duke of Leuchtenberg, in December 1810. Revealed in Kungliga Smycken, in February 1811, the Duchess of Leuchtenberg wrote to her brother, the King of Bavaria:

For the birth of my son, I received extraordinary wonderful gifts. Also the Empress sent to me a set in sapphires and diamonds and the Emperor elevated my son over the baptism, and he became August Napoleon.

When Princess Augusta’s eldest daughter, Princess Josephine married the future King Oscar I of Sweden in 1823, she received the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure as a Wedding Gift from her mother, wearing the Parure for a portrait by Fredric Westin in 1825. Queen Josefina possessed a spectacular jewellery collection, which included this Sapphire Parure, the Swedish Cameo Parure, and Napoleonic Amethyst Parure, as well as the Diamond Tiara and Emerald Parure now in Norway, and the Ruby Parure now in Denmark.

The Tiara was originally was more versatile, with pear-shaped Pearls replacing the Sapphires, though, currently, the sapphires are attached without the possibility to have them removed. It was long thought that the Pearls were a part of Queen Josefina’s Pearl Necklace, but it was revealed in Kungliga Smycken that the pearls are still in the Swedish Royal Collection, now worn as Earrings.

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After Queen Josefina’s death in 1876, the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure was inherited by her daughter-in-law, Queen Sofia, who gave it as a wedding gift to Princess Victoria of Baden when she married the future King Gustav V in 1881. Crown Princess, later Queen, Victoria, wore the Sapphire Parure for numerous portraits from the 1880s to the 1910s, most notably for the Wedding of her son, Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, and Princess Margaret of Connaught at Windsor Castle in 1905, though since she did not wear earrings, Queen Victoria seems to have disposed of the original Earrings of the Parure. Upon her death in 1930, the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure was left to the Bernadotte Family Foundation.

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The then Crown Princess Louise had been serving as the First Lady of the Swedish Court for years before Queen Victoria’s death, and wore the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure for the Wedding Gala of Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden and Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1932, and the Wedding Gala of Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Princess Ingrid of Sweden in 1935, as well as for King Gustav V’s 80th Birthday in 1938. Two of the hairpins were created into a new pair of Earrings for Crown Princess Louise.

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The Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure continued to be worn after she become Queen Louise in 1952, appearing on the Swedish State Visit to Denmark in 1952, at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in 1953, on the Swedish State Visit to Britain in 1954, for the Swedish Opening of Parliament, the British State Visit to Sweden, and the Order of Amaranth Ball in 1956 and the Dutch State Visit to Sweden in 1957 alongside numerous portraits.

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Royal history. The sad story of the widow princess Sibylla that lost her husband, the crown prince of Sweden Gustaf Adolf, who died in a plane crash 1947. Mother of the current king of Sweden. #Royalty #Royals #Sweden #History Read: https://t.co/FVh2PZvILs pic.twitter.com/qq6RfDgODz
— Classic Picture Library (@historyuntilnow) June 20, 2018

After Queen Louise’s death in 1965, the First Lady of the Swedish Court was Princess Sibylla, the widowed daughter-in-law of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and mother of the future King Carl XVI Gustaf, who did not publicly wear the Braganza Tiara nor the 9-Prong Tiara, but the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure was her primary jewel for years, having been worn for Portraits, Openings of Parliament, Nobel Prize Ceremonies, the Wedding of Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik of Denmark in 1967, the Wedding of Princess Benedikte of Denmark and Prince Richard of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg in 1968, and for King Gustaf VI Adolf’s 90th Birthday Gala and Banquet in 1972, less than three weeks before she passed away.

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The Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure remained unworn for four years, until, on the cusp of getting its new wearer, the Parure was worn by Princess Birgitta of Sweden and Hohenzollern, the elder sister of the groom, for the Wedding Gala of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden at the Royal Opera in Stockholm in 1976.

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Queen Silvia’s first appearance in the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure came a few months after her wedding, when it was worn for the Swedish State Visit to The Netherlands, followed by appearances in Portraits, at Nobel Prize Ceremonies, the Spanish State Visit to Sweden in 1979, and on the Swedish State Visit to France in 1980, highlighting the Napoleonic origin of the Sapphire Parure.

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Queen Silvia has stated that the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Tiara is her favourite Tiara in the massive Swedish Royal Collection because it is flexible and easy to transport, and it has been worn for numerous Nobel Prize Ceremonies, Representationsmiddags, and Official Portraits, as well as for King Olav V’s Silver Jubilee in 1982, Crown Prince Harald’s 50th Birthday in 1987, Emperor Akihito’s Enthronement Gala in 1990, and King Harald and Queen Sonja’s Silver Anniversary in 1993,.

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The Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure continued to be a favourite of Queen Silvia though the 2000s, being worn for the Swedish State Visit to Finland in 2003, and Queen Margrethe’s 70th Birthday in 2010, among numerous occasions, and a replica has also been worn by Christer Lindarw when portraying the Queen. At some point, Queen Silvia’s hairdresser, Peter Hägelstam, added rings of thread along the bottom of the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Tiara to create little loops that hairpins can be hooked through.

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While the 9-Prong Tiara has been worn by other ladies of the Swedish Royal Family over the years, the Braganza Tiara and the Leuchtenberg Sapphire Parure have been reserved exclusively for Queen Silvia, though in 2011, the Earrings, Brooch and Hairpins of the Sapphire Parure were worn by Crown Princess Victoria for the Nobel Prize Ceremony, indicative of her position as the future Queen.