Today, we’ve got a look at a classic royal brooch that has been a favorite of more than one generation of the British royal family: Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Brooch.
As the brooch’s name suggests, it was given to Queen Victoria in 1897 by the members of her royal household to mark her Diamond Jubilee. The jewel was made in that year by Garrard. Hugh Roberts describes its design as “of scrolled and pierced foliate design, pave-set with brilliants, with pearl centre surrounded by brilliants in cut-down collets, suspending a detachable loop of brilliants with pearl drop.” Victoria wore the brooch for a state dinner during the jubilee festivities, and she went on to designate the piece as an heirloom of the crown. That means that it passes from monarch to monarch, and it was subsequently in the collection of Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary.
In 1936, the brooch was passed to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the queen consort of King George VI. The brooch became one of her very favorite jewels; Roberts notes that she wore it “more often than any of her other brooches.” She chose it for several early important family events, including both the engagement portrait session for Princess Elizabeth and her wedding in 1947.
As an heirloom of the crown, the brooch should have passed to Queen Elizabeth II on her accession to the throne in 1952. However, the Queen Mother kept it in her jewelry box for another half century, wearing it often. She frequently sported the brooch for one of her favorite activities: visits to the races. Here, she wears the brooch at the Epsom Derby in 1963…
…and again for the same event in 1991. The Queen, standing beside her, is wearing her Sapphire Chrysanthemum Brooch.
Throughout her long life, the brooch was a constant fixture in photographs of the Queen Mother. Here, she wears it for Trooping the Colour in June 1999, when she was just shy of her 99th birthday.
She selected the brooch to wear for her 99th birthday celebrations that August, pinning it to a buttery yellow outfit.
The Queen Mum even wore the brooch for her very last birthday celebrations: her 101st birthday in 2001.
When the Queen Mother passed away in 2002, the brooch finally arrived in the Queen’s jewelry box. Although she kept some of her late mother’s jewelry in the vaults (or loaned it out to other family members), the Queen wore the Diamond Jubilee Brooch on multiple occasions. One memorable outing came in the summer of 2010, when she wore the brooch with a spangled maple leaf gown during a tour of Canada.
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