The Bernadotte Emeralds

The Swedish vaults are packed with colorful gemstones, including complete parures set with sapphires, amethysts, and aquamarines. The family also once owned an enormous parure of emerald jewels, but that left the family ages ago and now belongs to the Norwegian royals. Although the Swedish royals lost their major emerald parure, the collection does still include a number of emerald pieces, including a historic suite: the Bernadotte Emeralds.

The three-piece demi-parure of emerald and diamond jewelry once belonged to the first Bernadotte king, Carl XIV Johan. It consists of a large necklace that is said to have originally worn as a belt, plus two brooches. The larger brooch was originally a belt buckle. In the documentary Kungliga Smycken, Göran Alm shares that the first member of the family to wear the necklace from the set was Queen Sofia, the wife of King Oscar II.

During the last century, the present King’s mother, Princess Sibylla, was a particularly enthusiastic user of the set. Per Göran Alm, she directed Bolin to renovate the necklace from the set, making it more secure. Above, she wears the necklace and the larger brooch with the Connaught Diamond Tiara at the state opening of parliament in 1957.

Sibylla’s daughter-in-law, Queen Silvia, became the next primary wearer of the emeralds. This photograph was taken during one of her earliest appearances in the suite, which took place at a dinner at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam during the royal couple’s state visit to the Netherlands in October 1976. She wore the jewels with Queen Sofia’s Tiara and the Karl Johan Earrings, a combination she has repeated often over the last fifty years.

Crown Princess Victoria has also worn the Bernadotte emeralds on several occasions. In 2012, she paired the necklace and the smaller brooch with the Diamond Four-Button Tiara at the Nobel Prize banquet.

Victoria actually wore the full original demi-parure on that occasion. Above, you can see that she placed the buckle brooch from the set in her hair.

In recent years, a new pair of earrings has been made to make the suite a more complete demi-parure. Queen Silvia wears the earrings above during the Dutch state visit in the autumn of 2022.

A few months later, in December 2022, Crown Princess Victoria made her first appearance in the earrings at the King’s Dinner for the Nobel laureates. She also wore the necklace and small brooch from the set.

Princess Madeleine wore the new earrings from the suite with the buckle brooch for the Nobels in December 2024, pairing them with her grandmother’s favorite diamond tiara.

In December 2025, Queen Silvia wore pieces from the emerald suite once more with Queen Sofia’s Tiara for the annual Nobel celebrations. This time, she reached for the new earrings and the buckle brooch to complete her gala ensemble.