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Luxembourg

Sentimental tiara pick for Grand Duchess at her last New Year reception before abdication

Grand Duchess Maria Teresa celebrated one last New Year’s as her country’s consort, and atop her head was a tiara chosen for sentimental reasons.

For the last time, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa presided over the New Year’s Reception for the President and Prime Minister of Luxembourg as well as other members of the government, the Council of State, the judiciary, and the diplomatic corps within the country.

Grand Duchess Maria Teresa chose the Belgian Scroll tiara for her final New Year’s function as hostess.

Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue

The Belgian Scroll tiara was created in 1953 for Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium, who married Hereditary Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg that year. The tiara was made by Henry Coosemans with 854 Congolese diamonds, commissioned by the Société Génerale as a wedding gift.

The diamond and platinum tiara is fashioned in a scroll design, with the centrepiece stone, an 8.10 carat dimaond, that can be removed to wear as a ring. The central element can also be detached and worn as a brooch.

While Joséphine-Charlotte wore a separate tiara for her wedding ceremony, in wedding portraits, she wore the Belgian Scroll tiara. The dazzling diamond tiara gained additional fame as the one the new Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte wore to the abdication ceremony for her mother-in-law, Grand Duchess Charlotte, in 1964.

Unlike other tiaras in the collection for the Grand Ducal Family, the Belgian Scroll tiara was the personal property of Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte, and she wore it frequently throughout her life.

Upon her death in 2005, her children initiated plans to sell some of her jewellery, this tiara included, but public outcry led them to cancel the sale—though some pieces were still sold, just more quietly—and now Grand Duchess Maria Teresa wears it exclusively.

About author

Jess Ilse is the Assistant Editor at Royal Central. She specialises in the British, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Royal Families and has been following royalty since Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee. Jess has provided commentary for media outlets in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Jess works in communications and her debut novel THE MAJESTIC SISTERS is now available.