Heirloom Belgian Royal Earrings Sparkle at Notre Dame in Paris

This weekend, royals from across Europe traveled to Paris to be present for a ceremony marking the reopening of the restored Cathedral of Notre Dame, and two royal consorts sparkled in heirloom family earrings for the occasion.

On Saturday, representatives from nations around the world were invited to Paris to attend a special ceremony at Notre Dame to commemorate the cathedral’s return to holding religious services. The cathedral is being restored following a devastating fire in April 2019, with work largely finished on the building’s interior while work continues on the exterior. Among those in attendance at the ceremony were several representatives of European royal families. Above, the Prince of Monaco, the Queen of the Belgians, the King of the Belgians, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and the Prince of Wales sit together during the ceremony.

Here, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde pose with the Macrons during the ceremony. King Philippe and Grand Duke Henri are first cousins, both grandsons of King Leopold III of Belgium and Princess Astrid of Sweden. Their wives, Mathilde and Maria Teresa, both wore special earrings linked to their shared family history for the ceremony in Paris.

Here’s a closer look at Mathilde’s jewels. She wore a seed pearl and diamond choker necklace from her jewelry box with Queen Fabiola’s diamond and pearl drop earrings. We’ve seen her wear this combination of pieces before, notably for Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral in 2022 and the coronation of King Charles III in 2023.

The earrings belonged to a much-loved member of the Belgian royal family: Queen Fabiola, the wife of King Baudouin and an aunt of both King Philippe and Grand Duke Henri. She wore them often throughout her life for a whole range of occasions.

Since Fabiola’s passing in December 2014, Mathilde has been the exclusive wearer of the earrings, and it feels fitting that she’s made a pair of appearances in them during the week when the family marked a decade since Fabiola’s death. Along with the ceremony at Notre Dame, Mathilde also wore the earrings for a new set of portraits that were released on December 4 to mark her silver wedding anniversary.

Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, who poses here with Grand Duke Henri and the Macrons, also wore a pair of special earrings linked to Belgian royal history for the ceremony.

The earrings are set with diamonds and emeralds. They feature a striking pair of round pendants, suspended from thin diamond-set chains, that showcase central emeralds in elaborate diamond clusters.

The earrings originally belonged to Henri and Philippe’s grandmother, Queen Astrid of Belgium. Born a Swedish princess, Astrid was the first wife of King Leopold III of Belgium. She posed for this gala portrait in the earrings and the Nine Provinces Tiara shortly before her tragic death in an automobile accident. Later, the earrings were worn by King Leopold’s second wife, the Princess de Réthy.

Eventually, the earrings made their way into the jewelry collection of Leopold and Astrid’s only daughter, Joséphine-Charlotte, who married Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg. She wore them often with more glamorous emerald pieces from the Luxembourgish royal vaults, including their Chaumet Emerald Tiara and emerald and diamond bracelets that belonged to Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mikhailovna of Russia. She wears that combination of jewels in the photograph above, taken during the Luxembourgish state visit to their Norwegian cousins in 1990.

For that state banquet, Joséphine-Charlotte also added more pieces of jewelry from her maternal family, including a large emerald cluster brooch that belonged to Princess Ingeborg of Sweden and the Emerald Peacock Necklace, which Joséphine-Charlotte commissioned herself using emeralds taken from other pieces of Astrid’s jewelry.

We recently saw Astrid’s emerald earrings sparkling on another member of the family: Princess Claire of Luxembourg, Maria Teresa’s daughter-in-law, who wore them to Princess Alexandra of Luxembourg’s religious wedding ceremony in April 2023.

I’ll see you back here later today with coverage of the Nobel Prize tiaras, and then, a few hours later, a look at the tiaras from the Dutch state banquet. See you then!