The Queen of Spain’s National Day Pearls and Diamonds in Madrid

On Monday, the Spanish royal family joined in the National Day celebrations in Madrid, with Queen Letizia wearing special family pearls and diamonds for the occasion.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain were joined by their daughters, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia, for this year’s National Day festivities in Madrid. The royals were present for both the traditional military parade and the reception at the Royal Palace that followed, with Felipe and Leonor wearing full uniform for the parade.

Queen Letizia and Infanta Sofia wore elevated daywear for the occasion. Letizia reached into her closet for a light pink midi dress from a favorite Spanish firm, The 2nd Skin Co. We previously saw her wear the dress during last year’s state visit to China.

With the dress, Letizia wore a pair of pearl and diamond earrings that have been mainstays in her jewelry collection for more than two decades. She also pinned a major pearl and diamond brooch on her dress.

The top portion of the brooch features a large gray pearl set in a diamond cluster of diamond. The glittering jewel originally belonged to King Felipe’s great-grandmother, Queen Ena, who designated it as part of the joyas de pasar. That collection of jewels passes from monarch to monarch for the use of the Queen of Spain.

The brooch is most often worn with a pear-shaped pearl pendant that is flanked by a v-shaped diamond accent piece. Here, Queen Sofia wears the cluster with that pendant in Norway in 1984.

Queen Letizia has also often worn the brooch with this pendant. Here, she wears that version of the jewel for the Pascua Militar commemorations in January 2019.

But Letizia has also sometimes worn the cluster in other ways, usually without a pendant. It appears that, for yesterday’s National Day celebrations, she chose a different pendant to wear with the piece.

I think, based solely on visual comparison, that she may have used the pearl and diamond pendant from the Countess of Barcelona’s pearl and diamond brooch with the cluster for yesterday’s parade and reception. She wears the late Countess’s brooch with its usual pendant above on National Day in 2017.

Here’s another look at the version of the brooch worn by Letizia on Monday. You’ll also spot her Coreterno ring in its usual place on the index finger of her left hand. But instead of the Karen Hallam ring she’s often been wearing beside it on her middle finger, she wore a different slim gold ring.

Perhaps that’s because the Karen Hallam ring had already been claimed by someone else. With her berry-colored jacket and trousers, Infanta Sofia wore the oval ring on the ring finger of her left hand. The gold ring matched the yellow gold buttons of her blazer perfectly.