A Pair of Tudor Crown-Themed Brooches for Queen Camilla

We’re reaching back to the end of last month to look at a pair of Queen Camilla’s engagements, both of which featured crown-themed brooches as part of her ensemble.

Last week, Queen Camilla hosted a reception at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the final round of the BBC’s creative writing competition, 500 Words. The event was attended by a whole range of interesting guests, including the actors Rob Brydon and Olivia Colman. For the reception, Camilla wore an interesting crown-shaped brooch that has been in her jewelry box for at least a few years.

Here at The Court Jeweller, we first noted Camilla wearing the Tudor Crown Brooch in February 2023 during a visit to East London. The heraldic crown, also known as the “imperial crown” (because it has arches and a monde), has been used as an official symbol of the British monarchy at two different periods of history: during the reigns of Edward VII, George V, and George VI (1901-1953), and now during the reign of Charles III. (Queen Elizabeth II used St. Edward’s Crown as the official symbol during her reign.)

Queen Camilla has worn the brooch, which is set with diamonds and a single emerald, ruby, and sapphire on the crown’s base, for various occasions since early 2023. Here, she wears the piece in Selkirk during Holyrood Week in July 2023. Naturally, people have speculated that the brooch may have been a gift from King Charles. That certainly seems plausible to me, but I don’t believe we’ve had any provenance confirmation so far.

And here, she wears it for another Buckingham Palace reception in November 2023, which celebrated the winners of the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.

Here’s one more look at Camilla wearing the brooch for the recent February 26 reception. She pinned the piece on a dark jacket for the occasion, allowing the fine details of the brooch to stand out against the background.

A week earlier, Queen Camilla brought out another crown-themed brooch from her jewelry collection during a visit to the Asian Women’s Resource Centre, where she opened a new healing garden.

Various press outlets, including Tatler, have called the piece a “new” brooch for Camilla, which is not the case. But others have also been able to dig up some interesting provenance information on the piece. The photographs from the resource center visit show some of the details of the brooch quite clearly, allowing for a match to similar pieces. It’s a gold, pearl, and enamel presentation brooch, a souvenir from the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1902. What we earlier thought might be intertwined hearts or Cs are numbers: 1902. The stylized date is topped by an enamel crown, in the same heraldic Tudor crown shape as the other crown brooch.

The brooch is not a unique piece. Quite a few of this design were apparently made, and several have been sold at auction in recent years. Bonham’s offered an example in Edinburgh in 2008; Sworders sold one as part of an auction lot in 2018; Reeman Dansie in Colchester auctioned one in 2022; and most recently, Lay’s Auctioneers sold a similar brooch in February 2023. The brooch pictured above is the one sold at Lay’s, not the one worn by Queen Camilla.

Camilla has been wearing her 1902 presentation brooch since at least 2019. Here, hers is visible as she speaks during another Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition reception at Buckingham Palace in the autumn of 2019. She also wore the brooch for events earlier that summer.

A few weeks later, she took the brooch with her for a royal visit to New Zealand, where she wore it for another event connected to the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.

In the days just after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Camilla wore the brooch for a reception at Buckingham Palace attended by the High Commissioners of the Commonwealth Realms and their spouses.

We also saw her wear it in December 2022 for one of the most charming royal events of the year: her annual Christmas Party at Clarence House for children supported by the Helen and Douglas House and Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity.

So, where did Camilla’s presentation brooch come from? We don’t really know. It’s certainly possible that it was acquired at auction—clearly there are many opportunities to purchase one that way. But given the links to King Edward VII, others have naturally wondered whether there might be a connection to Camilla’s great-grandmother, Alice Keppel. That also seems possible, but there’s been no confirmation either way. We recently talked about several jewels connection to the King and Alice in an earlier article.