Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna’s Boucheron Pearl Coronet

Today marks the 130th Anniversary of the Engagement of Tsar Nicholas II and Princess Alix of Hesse, who got engaged on this day in 1894, during the Wedding of her brother, Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse, and his cousin, Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Among the spectacular Engagement Gifts received by the Hessian princess from the future Tsar was this Boucheron Pearl Coronet!

Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna’s Pearl Drop Tiara | Diamond Kokoshnik Tiara | Boucheron Pearl Coronet | Princess Alice’s Emerald Brooch

The Boucheron Pearl Coronet was not given immediately to Princess Alix, being only bought by the Tsarevich during an audience with a Boucheron Representative at Windsor Castle on July 17, 1894 (exactly 24 years before their gruesome Assassination), while he was on a visit to Queen Victoria. Later that year, he suddenly became the Tsar and the couple got married just a few days later before going into a long ritual court mourning.

The tiny Coronet was composed of 497 diamonds set into a diamond floral and scroll design surmounted by 18 teardrop pearls, being made by Boucheron in the mid-1890s, around the same time Boucheron created the Boucheron Marlborough Tiara. Princess Alix also received a necklace of pink pearls from the Tsarevich, alongside the pink pearl engagement ring, and a Faberge magnificent sautoir of pearls from Tsar Alexander III. Queen Victoria saw all these presents and the Tsarina later recalled how the Queen had said to her:

‘Now, do not get too proud, Alix’

It was only after their Coronation that the Imperial Couple were able to leave Russia, going on a Holiday with Queen Victoria at Balmoral Castle in 1896, when the Empress was portrayed wearing the Boucheron Pearl Coronet by Angeli, and also showed her jewels to her grandmother, Queen Victoria, who wrote:

She has quantities, all her own private property”

Though she had one of the world’s largest jewellery vaults, the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna wore the Boucheron Pearl Coronet for a series of portraits taken in 1898, though a larger Pearl and Diamond Tiara was also worn during the photo session.

Several years later, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna wore the Boucheron Pearl Coronet for a series of portraits taken with her son, Tsarevich Alexi, at the Alexander Palace in 1906.

Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna also wore the Boucheron Pearl Coronet for a series of portraits taken in the late 1900s, possibly on the Royal Yacht.

One of the most prominent appearances of the Boucheron Pearl Coronet came in 1913, when the Imperial Family posed for official portraits marking the tercentenary of the Romanov Dynasty.

Around that same time, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna was portrayed wearing the Boucheron Pearl Coronet in a watercolour by an unknown artist, possibly a member of the Imperial Family.

Following the Abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917, State Property like the Pearl Drop Tiara and Diamond Kokoshnik Tiara were sent to the Imperial Treasury in St. Petersburg, but as personal property, the Boucheron Pearl Coronet was among the jewels taken by the Imperial Family into exile in Tobolsk.

In Tobolsk, the Imperial Family were able to smuggle out several jewels through nuns and priest, which was hidden in two wooden vats and two glass containers and buried in a basement. The jewels remained hidden until the nuns were tortured in 1933, when two of the cases were found, the jewels photographed, and 154 items inventoried before disappearing on the journey to Moscow.

The Boucheron Pearl Coronet was not photographed among the jewels discovered, so it may be among the two cases which were never discovered or might have even been among those special jewels which were sewn into the clothes of the Imperial Family and made the bullets ricochet during their gruesome assassination in Yekaterinburg.

Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna was usually photographed wearing the Boucheron Pearl Coronet with a pair of large Pearl Earrings, and one of those was found near the mineshaft in Yekaterinburg where the Romanov Imperial Family were buried. The Earring was noted by the family tutor, Gibbes, as ‘These were her favourite earrings and she wore them often’, and eventually found its way to the Tsar’s sister, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, who divided the between relics between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Holy Trinity Monastery of the ROCOR in Jordanville, New York, who most recently loaned the Earring to ‘The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution’ Exhibit at the Science Museum in London in 2018-2019.

Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna’s Pearl Drop Tiara | Diamond Kokoshnik Tiara | Boucheron Pearl Coronet | Princess Alice’s Emerald Brooch