Can a crown with more than 1,100 diamonds actually be considered part of mourning attire?

If you were Queen Victoria who mourned her husband, Albert, for more than 40 years it can.

Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom in 1837 just one month after her eighteenth birthday. At that point, she had already met her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha who had visited England in 1836. Albert and Victoria were nearly the same age and although they were friendly at this initial meeting, she was not impressed with the shy and awkward prince who by some reports was chubby and not interested in girls.

This changed dramatically at their second meeting, arranged in 1839. Albert was grown up, intelligent, accomplished and charming. He was also “beautiful” as Victoria later wrote. She proposed just a few days later and they were married in 1840.

Thus began a great love affair, although one that not without its bumps. Albert, as an impoverished European prince, was disliked by British society which didn’t care for his foreignness and he was not initially accorded any role in Victoria’s household. However, gradually he earned Victoria’s trust, assumed more responsibility and eventually became Victoria’s chief advisor. He was active in many causes, including education reform and the abolition of slavery. He was also instrumental in the organization of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Crystal Palace Exhibition, which was a showcase for modern technology and design, the first world’s fair.

Albert died at the young age of forty two in 1861 after twenty-one years of marriage plunging Victoria into a melancholy from which she never really recovered. She ordered the bedroom in which he died to never be changed and she had his clothes laid out every day. She herself wore mourning clothes for the rest of her long life.

His death caused Victoria to withdraw from public life for nearly ten years, but by 1870 she finally understood that it was long past time for her to resume her official duties.

But the question of what jewelry to wear, including what crown to wear, was a serious one. Because she wore mourning clothes, her colored stone jewelry, including a tiara Albert had designed for her, wasn’t suitable for formal occasions. And, although she had started the fad for jet, a fossilized wood from Whitby in Yorkshire, jet, too, wasn’t suitable for formal affairs.

She could, however, wear diamonds.

Enter R.S. Garrard & Co. which had been appointed to the position of Crown Jewellers by Victoria in 1843. This distinguished firm was founded by George Wickes in 1722 and survives today as Gerrard & Co. (Among other famous jewelry, the company created the Imperial Crown of India in 1911, the crown for Queen Mary for her coronation and the crown of Queen Elizabeth in 1937. More recently, it created the well-known sapphire ring that belonged to Princess Diana and which was later given to Catherine by Prince William.)

Garrard designed what we know today as the small crown, a diminutive headpiece only 10 centimeters (four inches) round which Victoria typically wore over a veil of Honiton lace. She had worn Honiton lace on her wedding day.

The crown itself is a silver openwork frame, laminated with gold and consists of 1,187 brilliant, rose and mixed-cut diamonds and some diamond chips.

The small crown is on display this summer in Buckingham Palace as part of an exhibit mounted to commemorate Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. And, it should be noted that Victoria wore the small crown in the official pictures that commemorated her Diamond Jubilee which occurred on 22 June, 1897 one hundred and fifteen years ago.

Fleury Sommers is a goldsmith, pearl and bead stringer and has studied gemology for more than 25 years. She operated a gallery in Houston, Texas for more than ten years and is the creator of the comprehensive series of instructional jewelry making DVDs for pearl and bead stringers on her website.

Fleury Sommers is a goldsmith, pearl and bead stringer and studied gemology for more than 25 years. She owned a gallery in Houston, TX for a decade and is the creator of a series of instructional jewelry making DVDs for pearl and bead stringers available on her website http://fsommers.com

Author Bio: Fleury Sommers is a goldsmith, pearl and bead stringer and has studied gemology for more than 25 years. She operated a gallery in Houston, Texas for more than ten years and is the creator of the comprehensive series of instructional jewelry making DVDs for pearl and bead stringers on her website.

Category: Womens Interest
Keywords: Queen Victoria,small crown,diamonds,