New info about Bernadotte small cut steel tiara Archived Message
Posted by Boris on December 15, 2012, 9:54 am
In the new edition of Roger Lundgren’s Swedish magazine ‚Kungliga’, he wrote a two-page article about the cut steel jewelry in the Bernadotte collection. According to him, all of the pieces including the newly appeared small cut steel tiara with matching haircomb originally belonged to Queen Hortense of Holland who at one point gave them as a gift to her niece Joséphine of Leuchtenberg, later Queen Josefina of Sweden. As previously thought, they don't really form a parure but are essentially Queen Hortense's collection of early 19th century cut steel jewels. (Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Joséphine and Napoléon’s step-daughter, was married to Napoléon’s brother Louis, and Josefina was her niece, daughter of Joséphine’s son Eugène de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg.)
However, Lundgren calls the question why the small cut steel tiara has stayed in the vaults for such a long time a ‘mystery’. The odd thing is that the ‘new’ small tiara is officially labelled ‘privately owned’ by the Court, which leads to the question why parts of the Queen Hortense collection of cut steel pieces are included in the Bernadotte Foundation while others are someone’s personal property.
Lundgren also quotes Queen Silvia as saying about the large cut steel tiara: “It is so light and fragile that it almost feels as if snow falls on your head when you’re wearing it.”
on December 15, 2012, 9:54 am
