The Danish Royal Family’s Dazzling Diamond Ivy Brooch

Yesterday, we marveled at brooches that belonged to Britain’s Queen Mary. Today, we’ve got a closer look at an heirloom jewel now worn by Queen Mary of Denmark, who celebrates her birthday in Copenhagen today.

The diamond jewel is simply called the Ivy Brooch by the Danish royal family. The royal website describes the piece as a “large brooch consists of a recumbent oval with a rosette and, in it, a large diamond encircled by ten smaller diamonds as well as diamond-adorned swirls,” adding, “From the oval hangs a long, detachable pendant, shaped as a branch of ivy with seven large diamonds in old silver covers and, in between them, six ivy leaves decorated with diamonds.” The pendant can be detached and worn separately as a pendant on other pieces of jewelry, and the entire piece can also, per the website, be worn as a bracelet.

The sparkling jewel originally belonged to a woman who held an interesting middle place in the Danish royal family of the nineteenth century: extremely close to the throne, and yet extremely far away. Princess Caroline of Denmark, the elder daughter of King Frederik VI, was barred from the line of succession because, during her lifetime, Salic law was still in place in the country. Nevertheless, she was commonly referred to as Crown Princess Caroline by the Danish people, as she had no brothers.

To shore up the Danish succession, Caroline’s father brokered a marriage for her with his first cousin, Prince Ferdinand, who was third in line to the throne. After the deaths of two monarchs—Frederik VI and Christian VIII—Ferdinand became heir to the throne, and he and Caroline were given the titles of Hereditary Prince and Hereditary Princess of Denmark.

But Ferdinand died before he could inherit the throne, which ended up passing through a convoluted succession plan to King Christian IX. Hereditary Princess Caroline lived on as a widow, with no children of her own, for two more decades in increasing isolation. When she passed away in 1881, the ivy brooch was still part of her jewelry collection. It was purchased from her estate by the then-Crown Princess Lovisa, who later designated it as part of the Danish Royal Property Trust. It remains in that collection today, almost a century after Queen Lovisa created the trust.

The jewels of the Danish Royal Property Trust are earmarked for the use of the woman who holds the title of Queen of Denmark, either regnant or consort. Since Lovisa’s death in 1926, that role has been filled by Queen Alexandrine, Queen Ingrid, Queen Margrethe II, and Queen Mary.

Queen Alexandrine was not a fan of jewelry, so it was Queen Ingrid who next made great use of many of the pieces from the trust, including the Ivy Brooch. Here, she wears the complete piece in its brooch setting at the Festival of Britain during the Danish state visit to London in the spring of 1951. Her diamond drop earrings, which originally belonged to Princess Anne of Orange, are also part of the trust collection. (Queen Mary wore them for the recent Icelandic state banquet.)

Queen Ingrid also sometimes wore the top of the Ivy Brooch as a separate piece. Here, she has the top section pinned to her dress as she attends a 75th birthday luncheon for Sir Winston Churchill at the Danish Embassy in London in 1949.

And here, at the Anglo-Danish Society’s annual dinner during another visit to London in 1955, Ingrid wears both parts of the brooch, but separately. She has the top section pinned to her dress, and she’s wearing the pendant with the diamond riviere necklace that belonged to Anne of Orange, which belongs to the trust as well. So do the earrings, which also belonged to Hereditary Princess Caroline and were also acquired by Queen Lovisa and placed in the trust collection. Her tiara, the Khedive of Egypt Tiara, was one of her personal jewels, inherited from her mother, Margaret of Connaught.

After her accession, Queen Margrethe II wore almost the same combination of jewels during the Norwegian state visit to Denmark in 1974. She split the brooch in two, pinning the top section to her dress and wearing the pendant with Anne of Orange’s diamond necklace. She’s also wearing Hereditary Princess Caroline’s floral earrings. The only differences here are the tiara—Margrethe is wearing Queen Alexandrine’s Diamond Drop Tiara—and her diamond floral bracelet, which belonged to Queen Lovisa’s mother, Queen Louise of Sweden. (It’s part of the trust, too.)

Margrethe also wore the complete brooch during her reign. She has the full piece pinned to the Order of the Seraphim sash in this picture, which was taken at the wedding of Prince Carl Philip (her godson) and Princess Sofia of Sweden in 2015. She’s also wearing one of her personally-owned tiaras, the Baden Palmette Tiara, and Anne of Orange’s diamond earrings and necklace.

Since Queen Margrethe’s abdication and King Frederik X’s accession in January 2024, the pieces of the Danish Royal Property Trust have been transferred to Frederik’s wife, Queen Mary. She has begun wearing them for gala occasions, and we’ve seen her wear the top section of the Ivy Brooch twice so far. Her first appearance in the jewel came during the Egyptian state banquet at Christiansborg Palace in December 2024. On that occasion, she also wore the newly-created Danish Rose Diamond Bandeau.

Most recently, we saw her wear the top portion of the Ivy Brooch for a somber moment of reflection: a service in Poland commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.