How about a little tiaras-and-white-tie goodness for Black Friday? On Wednesday, the King and Queen of Spain welcomed the German presidential couple to Madrid, and Letizia brought out a tiara that belonged to a German-British princess for the occasion.
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain welcomed President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany and his wife, Elke Büdenbender, to Madrid for the start of a state visit on Wednesday. On the first night of the visit, the royal couple hosted a traditional gala dinner for their presidential guests at the Royal Palace. Felipe and Letizia wore the insignia of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, while their German guests wore Spain’s Order of Carlos III and Order of Isabella the Catholic (for him) and the Royal Order of Civil Merit (for her).
These European state visits between royals and republicans are always so interesting because of historical family ties. Through his mother, Queen Sofia, King Felipe is a great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. He would have heard plenty of stories about life in the German royal family from his grandmother, Queen Friederike, who died in Madrid when he was thirteen.
Queen Letizia’s choices for the banquet also have links to the Spanish royal family’s German heritage. She wore a stunning black gown with gorgeous beaded sleeves, which coordinated beautifully with the red, gold, and black colors of the German order sash.
Her jewelry comes from the collection of Felipe’s great-grandmother, Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain. Like Queen Friederike, Ena also had significant German royal heritage. Though we often think of her primarily as a British princess, Ena’s father was Prince Henry of Battenberg, a grandson of Grand Duke Ludwig II of Hesse.
From Ena’s collection, Letizia selected a classic diamond and pearl tiara with a scrolling, coiling laurel design. The tiara is an interesting example of royal recycling. This version was made by Cartier using elements from a dismantled tiara from Ena’s jewelry box.
Here’s the original diamond and pearl tiara, which was made by the Spanish jewelry firm Ansorena around the time of Ena’s wedding to King Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1906. The jewel was a gift from her influential new mother-in-law, Queen Maria Cristina. The tiara was accompanied in the jewelry case by something even more spectacular: a six-row pearl necklace with a jeweled clasp.
To the best of my knowledge, we have no photographs of Ena wearing the Ansorena version of the tiara. It’s clear that it wasn’t her favorite jewel, because at some point she had it dismantled. The materials were used to make the Cartier pearl and diamond scroll tiara. Ena wears the new tiara in this portrait with an additional pearl and diamond cluster affixed to the top of the central ornament. She also sometimes wore the tiara with a cache of emeralds that had been left to her by her godmother, Empress Eugenie of France.
In her will, Queen Ena left the Cartier tiara to her daughter, Infanta Maria Cristina. Through some transaction, the details of which have never been made public, the tiara made its way from Maria Cristina to her great-nephew, King Juan Carlos. In this photograph, taken during the Japanese state visit to Spain in the autumn of 1994, Queen Sofia wears the tiara as she receives guests during a gala banquet at the Royal Palace. (Beside her, Infanta Elena wears a tiara with major German royal connections: the Prussian Tiara.)
In June 2010, Juan Carlos and Sofia’s younger daughter, Infanta Cristina, borrowed the tiara to wear at the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden in Stockholm.
Since 2018, the tiara has been worn exclusively by Queen Letizia. She made her debut in the tiara during a gala dinner given for the visiting President of Portugal at the Royal Palace that spring. During that first appearance, the base of the tiara was still wrapped in silver-gray velvet to match Queen Sofia’s hair. Now, the base of the tiara is wrapped in brown velvet.
For both the Portuguese dinner in 2018 and this week’s German state dinner, Letizia paired the tiara with more glittering jewels that belonged to Queen Ena: her enormous diamond earrings. These were also wedding presents in 1906, gifts from King Alfonso XIII to his bride. Queen Ena included them in the joyas de pasar, a collection of jewels that passes from monarch to monarch, and Queen Letizia has now been wearing them for many years.
As usual, Queen Letizia wore just one more piece of jewelry: her gold Coreterno ring, in its usual place on the index finger of her left hand. She’s been wearing the ring, which is thought to be a sentimental gift from King Felipe, regularly since January 2023.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.