Tomorrow, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg will hand over her role to her daughter-in-law, Princess Stéphanie, when Grand Duke Henri abdicates. Over the past 25 years, Maria Teresa has worn a whole range of tiaras as Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, and today we’ve got a survey of some of her tiara and jewelry highlights.
The senior royal jewel in the Luxembourgish vaults is, without a doubt, the Empire Tiara. Made two centuries ago in Germany, the towering diamond tiara is reserved for the use of the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. Maria Teresa hasn’t worn it often over the past quarter century, but she has brought it out for some notable moments, including a memorable appearance at the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden in 2010.
The family also owns other tiaras that date to the nineteenth century. One of the most beautiful of these is Grand Duchess Adelaide’s Tiara, which was likely made for the second wife of Grand Duke Adolphe of Luxembourg in the second half of the century. It features leafy designs flanking a bright blue sapphire, all in a sleek, low kokoshnik shape. It’s been treasured by numerous ladies from the family over the decades, and Maria Teresa has worn it occasionally.
Dating to roughly the same time period is another naturalistic diadem, the Diamond Vine Leaves Tiara. The trailing tiara of diamond leaves and berries has been with the family since at least the reign of Grand Duchess Charlotte, whose daughters all wore it as a bridal tiara. Maria Teresa’s daughter-in-law, Princess Claire, borrowed it for her wedding in 2013, and Maria Teresa herself has worn it often for gala occasions as well. The family also owns a second, smaller diamond floral tiara, which Maria Teresa wore in her younger years.
Another tiny nineteenth-century tiara also resides in the Luxembourgish jewelry vaults. This petite diamond and turquoise jewel, along with its coordinating necklace and earrings, was rediscovered and refurbished at Maria Teresa’s request around 2006. The tiara, which I believe was probably originally a hair comb in a parure that included a larger turquoise tiara, apparently dates to the 1830s.
New tiaras were added to the grand ducal collection in the early twentieth century, largely during the reign of Grand Duchess Charlotte. Among them was the Chaumet Emerald Tiara, a striking Art Deco-style jewel with an enormous cabochon emerald centerpiece. The tiara is not reserved solely for the use of the Grand Duchess, but Maria Teresa has been the primary wearer of the piece since her husband’s accession, only occasionally loaning it out to other family members.
Chaumet is also the jeweler responsible for another Art Deco-era jewel: a convertible choker necklace with a lattice-work design that can be placed on a frame and worn as a tiara. The tiara can be topped with various gemstones, including sets of pearls. Maria Teresa has worn the jewel frequently, but it really grabbed international attention when she loaned it to her daughter, Princess Alexandra, to wear as her wedding tiara in 2023.
More tiaras joined the family collection when Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium married the future Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg in 1953. The most classic of these was the Belgian Scroll Tiara, a balanced, wearable diadem set with diamonds. Over the last decade, the tiara has easily become Maria Teresa’s most-worn gala jewel, appearing at a whole range of banquets, dinners, and receptions.
Another of Joséphine-Charlotte’s glittering wedding gifts was a convertible diamond necklace that could be placed on a tiara frame. Joséphine-Charlotte wore the tiara setting of the jewel for her religious wedding ceremony, and Maria Teresa followed in her mother-in-law’s footsteps three decades later, wearing it for her own religious wedding in 1981. The jewel was a gift from the then-Belgian colony of the Congo, which is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Perhaps that colonial history is one of the reasons we rarely see it today.)
The tiara was made by Van Cleef & Arpels, the same jeweler responsible for another of Joséphine-Charlotte’s convertible jewels, the Emerald Peacock Necklace. Maria Teresa has been photographed wearing that piece in its tiara setting just once during her husband’s reign.
During Grand Duke Jean’s reign, Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte acquired several suites of midcentury jewelry that include convertible bandeau-style tiaras. Among these is a diamond and aquamarine parure with a low-profile bandeau tiara. Maria Teresa has worn several of these suites, though we see them more often these days on other members of the family. Here, in 2004, Maria Teresa wears the aquamarine bandeau for the wedding of the present King and Queen of Denmark in Copenhagen.
Here, for a state dinner in honor of the President of Germany in November 2014, Maria Teresa wears another of the bandeau-style tiaras: a jewel made of citrines and pearls. The bandeau barely peeks out from her hair in the photographs from the dinner. More recently, the citrines have been embraced by her daughter-in-law, Stéphanie.
The family’s bandeau collection also includes a tiara set with oval-cut amethysts. Maria Teresa has occasionally worn that jewel, as well as a tiara set with rectangular amethysts. She wears the latter of these in the photograph above, taken during the National Day celebrations in 2005, paired with earrings and a necklace that match the oval amethyst suite.
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