In a picture from the State Visit I noticed Juliana wore her mother's large diamond set (festoon necklace and earrings) together with Queen Emma's large diamond necklace as a bandeau and the stomacher from 1879. The stomacher has three pear shaped diamond pendants: pear shaped diamonds set in smaller diamonds. The festoon necklace has one pear shaped diamond suspended from the central festoon..Queen Wilhelmina's diamond earrings consist of large diamond studs (now often worn by Maxima) with matching pear shaped pendants. These three could be one of the pear shaped diamonds.
Could one of these be worth 1-3 million? It would mean the earrings alone would have been worth between 3-9 million in 1971...
She was also wearing at least 500 carats in other diamond jewellery.... ( I almost forgot to mention her massive diamond bracelet from the Netherlands East Indies)
Quick count: she would have been wearing at least 100 million worth in diamonds that evening.... Nice...
The story is not entirely correct since the pendant that Queen Juliana lost from her necklace was not the cabochon emerald but a pear-shaped diamond. An emerald would not have been a plausible jewelry choice since the queen wore a red evening dress.
Speculations about the value of the stone ran high, and Bild Zeitung even reported the value was 3 million guilders (approx. 1,5 million euros today).
The police man who receivedd the silver cigarette box was a non-smoker but said the box would be nice for his wife to keep her jewelry in.
I have serious doubts this cabouchon emerald was worrth 1 million in 1971.
During a state visit to Germany in 1971, Queen Juliana suddenly noticed that the emerald pendant had dropped from her necklace after visiting the Hamburg city hall. A picture of the startled queen does exist, but I cannot find t just now. Later a Hamburg policeman, J. Müller, found this precious jewel, at the time valued at about one million guilders, on a carpet. The policeman got a silver cigarette box with the initials J & B, the Hamburg fund for police widows and orphans received -if I remember well - DM 50.000.....
The large cabochon emerald originates from the trousseau of Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia (1751-1820) when she married Prince William V of Orange (1751-1795) in 1767. They are the parents of King William I of the Netherlands (1772-1843).
Queen Maxima wore a large emerald pendant for the return event. What is the history of this piece?
Pictures from kungahuset.no, by Fredrik Sandberg/TT
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