Ruby Tiara Celebration Week continues here at TCJ today with a look at a fascinating ruby tiara debut from Princess Madeleine of Sweden back in May 2025, featuring a jewel that belonged to a particularly beloved Swedish crown princess.
On May 6, 2025, Princess Madeleine of Sweden and her husband, Christopher O’Neill, were among the family members in attendance at a state banquet honoring the visiting President of Iceland at the Royal Palace in Sweden. They’re pictured arriving here with her brother, Prince Carl Philip. For the occasion, Madeleine wore the same vibrant pink gown that she chose for the Nobels in December 2019, with her Icelandic and Swedish decorations—the sash and star of the Order of the Falcon, plus her father’s Royal Family Order and the Seraphim star—pinned to the dress.
Madeleine’s jewelry, though, completely stole the show on this occasion. At the banquet, she made her first public appearance in the diamond and ruby tiara that belonged to her great-grandmother, Princess Margaret of Connaught. The tiara was Margaret’s wedding gift from her uncle and aunt, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, in June 1905.
The tiara has had a meandering journey through the family. Margaret died early, and the tiara was inherited by her second son, Prince Sigvard. At some point, Sigvard apparently decided to sell (or loan, depending on whom you ask) the tiara to his father, King Gustaf VI Adolf. To try to mend fences, the King bequeathed the tiara in 1973 to Sigvard’s son, Michael, who then sold it directly back to the new monarch, his cousin King Carl XVI Gustaf. The new King made the tiara available to Sigvard’s wife, Marianne Bernadotte, to wear on occasion, but it has otherwise since then been worn only by Queen Silvia.
Princess Madeleine’s appearance marked the first time that another Swedish royal lady has worn the tiara in decades. She paired it with jewelry both old and new: nineteenth-century diamond earrings that come from the Leuchtenbergs and a modern diamond cocktail ring.
After the banquet, Trond Norén Isaksen, the Norwegian jewelry historian, mentioned an interesting possibility: that Carl Gustaf and Silvia have always intended to pass the tiara along to Madeleine. In her memoirs, Marianne Bernadotte wrote that Queen Silvia told her directly that the tiara was earmarked for Madeleine’s future use. Will we be seeing her in the rubies more often, I wonder, in the coming years, especially now that she’s living in Sweden again?
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