In her memoirs Princess Alice states that Mary Adelaide bought the stomacher from Mr Garrard for £700
--Previous Message-- : We are all familiar with the story that the : Duchess of Teck had a diamond stomacher from : Garrards, in which she set some of the : Cambridge emeralds, that the present Queen : now wears as a brooch. : : However, more significantly, and seemingly : overlooked is the fact that this stomacher, : which passed to Princess Alice, Countess of : Athlone was more often worn with : considerable Sapphire and Diamond Clusters. : : To the Devonshire House Ball in 1897, the : Duchess of Teck wore the diamond stomacher : set with four (4) sapphire and diamond : clusters, with one (1) sapphire and cluster : drop, and one (1) large sapphire and diamond : cluster brooch pinned directly above the : stomacher. : : : : Both these clusters and the stomacher passed : to Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone. : : She can be seen wearing the empty stomacher, : without the clusters, which shows the : stomacher more clearly, as having four (4) : large apertures, with numerous pendant : diamond drops suspended down the sides. : : : : Images also show that all the sapphire and : diamond clusters (six in all) passed to : Princess Alice. : : She can be seen here, wearing the three : largest as brooches on her sash, the two : smallest as pendants to her earrings, and : the pendant as a pendant to her necklace. : : : : Princess Alice wore the stomacher, with some : of the sapphires (minus the largest cluster : brooch, and the pendant) to the 1911 : coronation. (To which she also wore the : Duchess of Teck's ears of wheat tiara.) : : : : It can also be seen in this picture that the : Duchess of Teck wore one of the clusters : from the stomacher as the centre-piece of a : hair ornament (it appears to be pinned to : the centre of her hoop necklace), and : another cluster as a pendant to her pearl : necklaces. : : : : Nothing is known of the provenance of these : jewels, the stomacher and the clusters, nor : how they came into the possession of the : Duchess of Teck. A likely source, could be : that they were bequeathed to the Duchess of : Teck from Princess Mary, Duchess of : Gloucester - who left her so many of the : jewels that we now associate with her and : Queen Mary. : : There is an inventory of the Duchess of : Teck's jewels, which would shed more light : on this matter, however this remains in the : Royal Archives and only came to light : recently with Roberts' publication. : : Furthermore, the current whereabouts of : these jewels are unclear. : : : : :
on January 29, 2013, 4:26 pm, in reply to "