Happy National Day, Belgians! Last month, we were treated to the debut of a brand-new (to us) tiara during a state banquet at the Palace of Laeken. Today, let’s discuss everything we know about Princess Eléonore’s diamond scroll tiara.
The tiara debut took place during a particularly glittering event: the state banquet held at the Palace of Laeken on the first evening of the Emperor and Empress of Japan’s state visit to Belgium. King Philippe and Queen Mathilde hosted the event with the help of their four children: the Duchess of Brabant, Prince Gabriel, Prince Emmanuel, and Princess Eléonore.
The banquet marked eighteen-year-old Eléonore’s first appearance at a royal event wearing full gala attire and jewelry. Her light-pink gown, which featured a dramatic cape detail, came from the brand Safiyaa.
The real star of the show, though, was of course the diamond tiara that Eléonore wore for the occasion. The jewel, made of rose-cut diamonds set in silver and gold, features a series of scrolls with floral and trefoil design accents. The central clover element, notably, is able to be removed and worn separately as a brooch. The tiara was a birthday present, given to Eléonore by her parents when she turned eighteen in April.
But the family has had the tiara longer than that. The royal watcher Benjamin Vaesen discovered that the tiara is a design from the Belgian firm Coosemans. I don’t believe we have an exact creation date for the tiara, but I’d estimate that this was made in the late 1940s or early 1950s. It was sold by an auction house in Milan, Il Ponte, in November 2019, right around the same time that the family purchased a diamond tiara for Eléonore’s elder sister, Elisabeth. For Eléonore’s tiara, the King and Queen paid €26,000, slightly over the auction estimate.
If the scrolling designs of Eléonore’s tiara look familiar, I’ll direct you to another famous royal design from the same firm: the Belgian Scroll Tiara, which is worn by the Grand Duchesses of Luxembourg. It arrived in the grand duchy with Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium, the eldest daughter of King Leopold III, when she married Hereditary Grand Duke Jean in 1953. It feels very fitting to have a “little sister” of the Luxembourgish tiara worn by a young Belgian princess.
Eléonore (who, like all members of the family, struggled with the sun during the banquet) also wore a pair of diamond earrings and a diamond bracelet for the banquet. Belgian royal writer Jelka Van Duyse shares that both the earrings and the bracelet are new, with the earrings coming into the family via another auction purchase.
Philippe and Mathilde acquired the diamond and platinum earrings from Segre, a Spanish auction house, in September 2024. They’re described in the lot notes as “long Art Deco style earrings with approximately 2.60 ct of diamonds in total,” featuring “a geometric design with a central, mobile diamond.” The lot sold for €2,600.
The earrings resemble numerous pieces of jewelry from Mathilde’s own collection, suggesting that she’s the one who picked them out. Whether they’re shared pieces that rotate between the family members or part of Eléonore’s personal collection remains to be seen. Either way: so good to see “new to us” jewels arriving in a royal vault! Here’s hoping we see some lovely jewels out today for the National Day celebrations in Brussels. I’ll be covering those events tomorrow morning here at TCJ!
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