Posted by PJ Kiser on April 28, 2013, 8:35 pm, in reply to "The Dutch crown"
Thanks for the great info Henri. I love the remade crown better. PJ
--Previous Message-- : Yesterday in the weekly program "Blauw : Bloed" (Blue Blood) there was a : reportage about the jeweller Bonebakker in : Amsterdam. Willem II ordered the crown in : 1840 at the firm Bonebakker. The original : drawing is still there: : : : : The crown is made of heavily guilded : "Bonebakker Silver" said the : spokesman from the jeweller. The arches were : provided with 8 fake-pearls. I thought the : pearls were still fake but the man from : Bonebakker said that Queen Emma had these : fake pearls replaced by real ones. Because : there were not enough same-sized big pearls, : the present crown has real pearls but only 5 : per arch. : That is why one can see "filled : holes" on the arches. Apparently the : pearls are real. I thought these were still : fake? But the explanation of Bonebakker was : plausible. If you replace fake pearls by : other (better) fake pearls, why not replace : all 78? : : The original design had 72 pearls: 8 arches : x 8 pearls = 64 pearls + 8 pearls on the : base. : The present design has 24 pearls less: 8 : arches x 5 pearls = 40 pearls + 8 pearls on : the base. : : Anyway, because the jewels were never meant : to be used but purely as an attribute for : "the theatre of state" the King : did not spend too much money on the regalia. : : : :
on April 28, 2013, 8:35 pm, in reply to "