An exquisite gold, sapphire and diamond brooch crafted in St Petersburg was consigned to auction in October 2018. I had first encountered it as a personal gift from Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (1872-1918) to the friend of her youth, Marion Louisa ‘Pollie’ Delmé-Radcliffe, Baroness Ungern-Sternberg whose touching connection I explored in a short article for my Royal Central blog back in…
It’s the biggest royal anniversary of the year and it’s almost upon us. May 24th 2019 marks two centuries since the birth of Queen Victoria, a monarch so influential, she gave her name to an era. And as part of our Victoria series on Royal Central, we’ve…
Born Masako Owada (orOwada Masako according to Asian naming customs where the family name is placed before the given name), she was born on 9 December 1963 in Tokyo’sToranomon Hospital toYumiko Egashira andHisashi Owada – the latter being…
It raced to the top of the guessing charts almost as soon as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their were expecting a baby and as the wait for the arrival of the new seventh in line to the throne enters its final stages, it’s still number one. A new survey has shown that Diana is the top pick as the name for Harry and Meghan’s bundle of joy.
That is, of course, if they welcome a…
OK, I hate to be the one to break it to you like this but you might not find out the answer to that question until Baby Sussex is wailing down the walls of Frogmore Cottage. The decision of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to keep the arrival of their first child private means…
In a recent life of Queen Victoria, (A. N. Wilson, Victoria: A Life, 2014) I stumbled across an illustration of one of the famous group photographs taken behind the Palais Edinburg in Coburg, showing Queen Victoria surrounded by a whole host of contemporary royalty –…
Aged sixteen, Princess Victoria made a pencil sketch of herself. Knowing the vividness of the watercolours that she made for her sketchbook and the skilled drawings she made during this time of other important figures in her youth, it is fascinating that she chose to apply the same exactness of observation to herself. It is, of course, however, not the only self-portrait that she made. The date…
Frogmore House, royal residence and regal wedding venue of choice for the Windsors, is throwing open its doors to visitors. The famous building at Windsor will be open for three charity days at the end of May this year.
The visits are part of the annual charity garden open…
Eternally beautiful, eternally tragic, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Sisi, continues to fascinate, over a hundred years after her death. And now the story of this groundbreaking royal is to hit TV screens in a new production.
The new version will be an adaptation of the…
There are thousands of images of royalty but some regal pictures stand out. They capture a moment in time that has its own resonance and which lasts beyond the day on which it was taken. In this occasional series, Royal Central takes a look back at some of the best known royal images in history and the story behind them. This time, it’s the moment celebrity and royalty really came together…
