Queen Mary’s quest to showcase heirloom jewels within the Danish Royal Collections continued in Estonia on Tuesday, as the Danish queen wore a nearly 200-year-old sapphire brooch as a spotlight piece of her outfit.
King Frederik and Queen Mary arrived in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, for a two-day state visit to the Baltic country on Tuesday morning. It’s part of a charm offensive in the Baltic States, which will see the royal couple also travel to Lithuania for a two-day state visit beginning Wednesday afternoon.
The Danish royal couple arrived at the Town Hall Square in Tallinn and met with President Alar Karis and First Lady Sirje Karis at the welcoming ceremony. They laid a wreath at the Monument to the War of Independence and later visited the Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Maarjamäe.
King Frederik and Queen Mary then traveled to the Estonian Statehood House for an official luncheon, and it was there that Queen Mary revealed that she was wearing a 186-year-old sapphire brooch on her dress.
According to the Danish Royal Family’s website, the Flood Sapphire Brooch was created around 1840 for Queen Marie Sophie Frederikke, consort of King Frederik VI. It left the royal collections in 1872, when Duchess Wilhelmine of Glücksborg, their daughter, donated it to raise money for flood relief in Lolland-Falster. Queen Louise, consort to King Christian IX would later repurchase the brooch and leave it to Crown Princess Alexandrine, and afterwards it was entrusted to the Danish Royal Family’s jewel vault by either Queen Alexandrine or Queen Ingrid.
The Flood Sapphire is an emerald-cut sapphire surrounded by small diamonds and encircled by 22 larger diamonds.
After lunch, King Frederik and Queen Mary met with Estonian Speaker of the Parliament, Lauri Hussar, at the Riigikogu. They then travelled to the Rakett69 Science Studios with the Presidential Couple to meet with girls interested in the sciences.
In the evening, Queen Mary wore her wedding tiara at a state banquet hosted by Estonian President Karis at the St. Nicholas Church. The diamond tiara features scroll, fleur-de-lys, and festoon design elements, and can be worn as a necklace as well. It was a wedding gift from Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik, and the provenance has never been definitively confirmed. Queen Mary had the tiara altered in 2011 so that pearls could be attached to the fleurs-de-lys and and row of pearls could be added to the base.
Since becoming Queen Consort, Queen Mary has delighted royal watchers with her penchant for digging heirlooms out of the jewel vaults.
Last fall on a state visit to Latvia, Queen Mary wore the Pearl Poire brooch and earrings that were belonged to a parure created for the wedding of Princess Louise of Prussia and Prince Frederick of the Netherlands in 1825.
Their granddaughter, Princess Lovisa of Sweden, married Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark in 1869, and received parts of the Pearl Poire set on her wedding day and subsequent pieces later on. The newlyweds would later become King Frederik VIII and Queen Louise and reigned from 1906 to 1912; the pearls became part of the jewel vault and have been worn ever since.
Queen Mary also debuted a 200-year-old golden tiara during a state visit to Finland last March; wearing a golden tiara created for Queen Caroline Amalie in 1820 that features gemstones from Pompeii and Rome. Queen Mary’s golden bracelet also dated back to the 1820s and featured gemstones found around Mount Vesuvius.
