This week, the King and Queen of the Belgians headed to Oslo for a state visit with their Norwegian counterparts, and the banquet held on the first evening brought out a pair of special royal tiaras.
King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of the Belgians arrived at the Royal Palace in Oslo on Tuesday to begin a state visit with King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway. Crown Prince Haakon was also part of the royal welcome party and, in a surprise move, so was Crown Princess Mette-Marit.
It had previously been announced that Mette-Marit would not take part in the visit because of her worsening health problems (and the scandals of her son’s arrest and trial and her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein). She attended Tuesday’s welcome ceremony but not the state banquet in the evening.
A Belgian-Norwegian state visit isn’t just a diplomatic moment—it’s also a family reunion. King Harald is a first cousin of King Philippe’s father, King Albert II. Their mothers, Crown Princess Märtha of Norway and Queen Astrid of Belgium, were the second and third daughters of Prince Carl of Sweden and Princess Ingeborg of Denmark. Astrid is the toddler being held by her mother in this photograph, and Märtha is pictured beside her on the right side of the image. Their elder sister, Princess Margaretha, is pictured on the left.
For the welcome ceremony, Queen Mathilde dressed in pink and wore the pearl and diamond earrings that belonged to the late Queen Fabiola of Belgium. Queen Sonja opted for an ivory dress with a red hat and black boots, plus a suite of modern metallic jewels.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit wore navy and red with a special pearl and diamond brooch. The jewel belonged to King Harald’s grandmother, Queen Maud of Norway.
The brooch was one of the jewels inherited as a lifetime loan by Harald’s sister, Princess Ragnhild. She wears it on the neckline of her gown in this photograph from 1980. The brooch was reportedly returned to the royal vaults by Ragnhild before her death in 2012. More recently the jewel has been worn by Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who was seen wearing it last year on Constitution Day.
On Tuesday evening, King Harald and Queen Sonja hosted a state banquet for their Belgian royal cousins at the Royal Palace in Oslo. Crown Prince Haakon was with his parents, but neither Crown Princess Mette-Marit nor Princess Astrid, who has been dealing with her own health problems, attended the event. Princess Ingrid Alexandra was also not present. She’s presently studying at the University of Sydney in Australia.
For the white-tie banquet, Queen Sonja wore a pale pink gown with a gray lace bodice, paired with pearl and diamond jewelry from the family collection. Her decorations included the sash and star of Belgium’s Order of Leopold, as well as King Harald’s Royal Family Order.
She wore the replica of Queen Maud’s Pearl Tiara for the occasion, paired with the Drapers’ Company Brooch that was one of Maud’s 1896 wedding presents. She also wore pearl drop earrings, a four-row pearl necklace, and a pearl bracelet.
Queen Mathilde gleamed in a gold lace evening gown with sequin embellishments for the dinner. UFO No More tells us that the dress comes from Armani Privé. She wore the sash and star of the Order of St. Olav with the gown, and her wardrobe assistants appear to have reinforced the fabric behind the star.
She wore the grandest tiara in the Belgian royal vaults for the occasion: the Nine Provinces Tiara, a jewel made as a national wedding gift for Queen Astrid in 1926.
She paired the tiara with classic diamond ribbon and fringe earrings from her personal collection. She’s worn these often over the years, including an appearance in Oslo during Harald and Sonja’s joint 80th birthday celebrations in the spring of 2017.
As a coda to today’s article, don’t forget that Saturday means a new article for paid subscribers over at Hidden Gems on Substack. This week’s edition is the third installment in my year-long series about the tiaras of Queen Elizabeth II, focusing on the much-lamented Nizam of Hyderabad Tiara. See you there!
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