Tuesday 13 November 2012

Royal jewels: The Brazilian tiara

The grandest of the many grand tiaras in the possession of the Swedish royal family is the so-called Brazilian tiara, formerly wrongly known as the Coronation tiara. This magnificent piece of jewellery is normally only worn for the grandest of occasions. Queen Silvia has made it a tradition to wear it for incoming state visits from reigning monarchs and she also wore it for Crown Princess Victoria’s and Prince Daniel’s wedding in 2010 and for the sixtieth birthday of King Carl Gustaf in 2006. She has also worn it for most official portraits.
The myth that this tiara was worn by Swedish queens on their way to the coronation church ever since the eighteenth century can be traced no further than to a book written by the royal postcard collector Sigyn Reimers in 1957 (a book which also seems to be the original source for the equally wrong claim that the emerald parure now in the possession of the King of Norway belonged to Empress Joséphine of the French and was worn by her at the coronation in 1804).
However, there are no traces of this splendid piece of jewellery until the inventory of the jewels of the Dowager Queen Josephina of Sweden and of Norway which was drawn up after her death in 1876. In this inventory the tiara and a matching necklace, a brooch and a pair of earrings are valued at 248,000 SEK, making it by far the most expensive parure in the inventory – the so-called Leuchtenberg sapphires are, for comparison, valued at 69,500 SEK, and the emerald parure now in Norway at 41,000 SEK.
The art historian Göran Alm, who recently retired as head of the Bernadotte Library at the Swedish Royal Collection, has furthermore discovered that Queen Josephina in a draft of her will describes it as “the great Brazilian parure”, leaving it to the royal jewellery foundation. This makes it obvious that the parure only came to Sweden as part of the great inheritance from Queen Josephina’s younger sister, the Dowager ex-Empress Amélie of Brazil, who died in Lisbon in 1873, an inheritance which also included the above-mentioned emerald parure and many other splendid items.
The inheritance was shipped to Kristiansand in Norway onboard the Norwegian naval corvette “Balder” and from there to Stockholm. Thus the tiara arrived in Sweden after the last coronation in the country’s history had been held in May 1873, making it possible to reject conclusively the myth put forward by Sigyn Reimers.
The Brazilian author Claudia Thome Witte, who is writing a biography of Empress Amélie, has recently revealed that the tiara was a wedding present to her from her husband, Emperor Pedro I, in 1829. The diamonds had originally belonged to the Emperor’s first wife, Leopoldina, née Archduchess of Austria, and had been inherited by their children following the Empress’s death in 1826. Pedro acquired the diamonds by assuming a debt in bonds as compensation to the children and presented the tiara to his new bride, who first wore it for the hand-kissing ceremony following her wedding. Empress Amélie wrote to her mother, Dowager Duchess Auguste Amalie of Leuchtenberg, that “the tiara [was set] with the best Brazilian diamonds in various sizes and [of] so pure clarity that [they] seemed made of water”.
There are no known portraits of Queen Josephina wearing the tiara, but following her death in 1876 it was worn by her daughter-in-law, Queen Sophia (pictured above with it and parts of the emerald parure) and subsequently by Queen Victoria. Following Queen Victoria’s death in 1930 it was worn rather frequently by her daughter-in-law, Crown Princess and from 1950 Queen Louise. Queen Louise often wore it to the State Opening of Parliament and in 1937 also at the coronation of her second cousin, King George VI of Britain. After Queen Louise’s death in 1965 it was not seen again until her step-grandson Carl XVI Gustaf married in 1976 and Queen Silvia immediately began to wear it. Now that its Brazilian origins have been established this seems particularly fitting, as Queen Silvia is herself half Brazilian.

6 comments:

  1. In a portuguese biography about Queen Amelia of Portugal (married to King Carlos I) it is mentioned that the death in Lisbon (in the Palace that is nowadays the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga) of the former Dowager Empress Maria Amelia of Brasil caused some annoyance after her will was opened, as none of her precious belongings were left to Portugal or to the portuguese King or Queen.
    Bernardo de Barahona

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for adding that - do you remember the title of the book and the name of the author (might be useful to know)? I can imagine the annoyance, as it was a large and splendid inheritance and all of it went to Empress Amélie's own relatives.

      Delete
  2. There were even cartoons by the republican Portuguese press representing Queen Maria Pia crying seeing the Swedish boat leaving Lisbon with the treasures.
    But Maria Pia didn´t deserve them anyway...on the night the Empress died the Queen ordered it to be a secret and sent 2 ladies to mourn the corpse while there was a big ball at the Royal Palace...quite macabre!

    Alberto Penna Rodrigues

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can imagine that any royal house would have loved to get their hands on the ex-Empress's collection. By the way, the ship was Norwegian, not Swedish.

      Delete
  3. The treasury (jewels, etc) fortunately are in the right hands as the Bernadottes still help the charity foundation created by the Empress in the Madeira.
    The Empress did not link her heritage to the care of her foundation. Her sister Queen of Sweden would have inherited them even without helping the foundation (this is a point Claudia Witte insists).
    But fate decided the Bernadottes are still on the throne and helping the foundation to this day...
    If the Empress had left the treasury to the Royal Family of Portugal the treasure would be in the hands of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family as Queen Augusta Victoria left most her Portuguese inheritance to her family in Germany (see the book published yesterday in Portugal by Ricardo Mateos on the life of the last King and Queen of Portugal http://www.wook.pt/ficha/d-manuel-ii-o-ultimo-rei-de-portugal/a/id/14384858) or dispersed by the widow of the Duke of Oporto...
    But the Empress would be harsly criticized in the book by Benevides "Rainhas de Portugal" (Queens of Portugal) published in 1883 and re-published 2 years ago...(a reference book),

    Alberto Penna Rodrigues

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, you are correct that the Madeira institution in memory of the ex-Empress's daughter and the inheritance left to her sister the Queen Dowager of Sweden and of Norway were (and are) not linked or dependent on each other.

      Delete

Comments are welcome, but should be signed - preferably by a name, but an initial or a nick will also be accepted. Advertisements are not allowed. COMMENTS WHICH DO NOT COMPLY WITH THESE RULES WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED.