It’s been a week of wonderful tiaras in Europe, and today, we’ve got a closer look at Queen Máxima’s dazzling state banquet appearance in Cyprus—including an interesting bracelet swap during the event!
The King and Queen of the Netherlands were welcomed to Cyprus by President Nikos Christodoulides and his wife, Philippa Karsera, for a state visit on Tuesday. That evening, the presidential couple hosted a state banquet in honor of their royal guests at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia.
The dinner was a black-tie event, with the royal and presidential couples both wearing miniature orders with their gala attire. But, delightfully, Queen Máxima opted to wear a tiara with her Jan Taminiau gown anyway. She chose a lower-profile, but still stunningly grand, option from the Dutch royal vaults: the Dutch Diamond Bandeau. The diamonds in the tiara were originally set as a necklace, which was given to Queen Emma of the Netherlands as a wedding present by the Dutch people in 1879. Emma’s granddaughter, Queen Juliana, had the piece reset as a bandeau-style tiara in the 1930s.
With the bandeau, Máxima wore even more stunning heirloom diamonds from the family collection. The diamond earrings she chose for the dinner belonged to Queen Wilhelmina, who received them as a ninth birthday present from her father, King Willem III, in 1889.
Máxima also wore bracelets on both wrists—but look closely, because some interesting bracelet-switching apparently went on as the night progressed. When the Queen arrived at the Presidential Palace, she was wearing Queen Wilhelmina’s Diamond Trellis Bracelet on her left wrist and her family diamond initial bracelet stacked with the smaller Dutch East Indies Bracelet on her right wrist.
In photographs taken at the table during the dinner, however, Máxima has removed the diamond initial bracelet and replaced it with her diamond wedding bracelet instead. I wonder if a clasp malfunctioned, or if she found the previous combination too uncomfortable?
There was also one more big piece of diamond jewelry to note as part of Máxima’s state banquet ensemble. On her right hand, she wore a diamond ring with an enormous octagonal stone. The central diamond was also originally part of the large bracelet given to Queen Juliana by the representatives from the Dutch East Indies (now part of the present-day nation of Indonesia) as a wedding present. When the bracelet was reworked, producing two smaller, more wearable bracelets, the stone was set in a ring.
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