On Monday, the Dutch royals put on their best gala attire to host a dinner for the Diplomatic Corps in Amsterdam, with Queen Máxima gleaming in a spectacular antique family tiara.
King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima were on hand at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam on Monday for a white-tie dinner given in honor of members of the Diplomatic Corps. The King wore medals and decorations with his suit, including the distinctive sash and star of the Military William Order, the oldest and most prestigious chivalric order in the Netherlands.
Queen Máxima reached into her wardrobe archive to select a dress for the Diplomatic Corps dinner. This Jan Taminiau dress, which has distinctive floral-esque beaded embellishments, has been in her collection since 2010, when she made her debut in the ensemble at Prinsjesdag. She also wore the dress for a concert during the state visit to Qatar in 2011.
This time around, Máxima wore the dress with a tiara that has been in the Dutch royal vaults for 125 years: the Antique Pearl Tiara.
The tiara was made for Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1900, based on the design of an earlier tiara worn by her paternal grandmother, Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia. At least four of the pear-shaped pearls used to make the new tiara date to the seventeenth century. They come from the collection of Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, the German countess who married Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange in 1625.
The Antique Pearl Tiara, as it has become known, was placed in the family’s jewel foundation by Queen Juliana in the 1960s. During that decade, it was used regularly by her daughters, especially Princess Beatrix, for gala occasions. Here, Beatrix wears the tiara during the Austrian state visit to the Netherlands in 1961.
Today, Queen Máxima is the primary wearer of the tiara, though it remains available for the use of other family members as well. Máxima has been wearing it in various configurations for almost a quarter of a century. She made her tiara debut in the piece in August 2001, when she wore it as Ms. Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti to the wedding of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Norway in Oslo. On that occasion, she wore the diamond base of the tiara without the antique pearl toppers.
In more recent years, she has preferred to wear the complete setting of the tiara with the pearls in place. That’s the version she wore for a striking portrait photograph taken in 2011 to celebrate her 40th birthday.
Máxima likes to pair the tiara with other pearl pieces from the collection. For Monday’s Diplomatic Corps dinner, she wore it with long diamond earrings from Queen Juliana’s collection and natural pear-shaped pearl pendants that also come from the Dutch royal vaults.
There was one more significant piece of pearl jewelry in her ensemble for Monday’s dinner as well: a large, modern diamond and pearl cluster ring, worn on her right hand. (You can see a close-up in an earlier article here.) Her engagement and wedding rings were in their usual place on her left.
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