And if... Archived Message
Posted by Vincent on March 31, 2014, 12:52 pm, in reply to "Greek Royal family turquoise jewels. Two items with British links."
This is purely an invention of mine. But, We have, on one side, a set of diamonds and turquoises, given to princess Sophie of Prussia by her brother and mother, which, apparently she did not wear much. We don't have any pictures of her wearing those jewels. But it seems clear, she was given that set on her wedding. On the other side we have a set of turquoises and diamonds worn by princess Françoise of France, second wife of prince Christopher greece. The tiara she's wearing is very close the tiara description given by Claes. "A tiara, three rows of turquoise, the superior row made of pear shaped stones, surrounded by volutes of diamonds". It is only a stupid guess of mine, but is it mad to imagine that during her second exile, when she was a widow, in the 1920s, queen Sophie of Greece would have sold that set to her brother in law prince christopher, in order to get some cash to finance her exile in Italy. The greek royal family was not very rich, queen Sophie was not very rich either. She must have needed some money in exile and prince Christopher was one of the very few members of the royal family who had the means to buy some jewelry to help his relatives. We could even imagine that prince Christopher bought these turquoises in order to give a wedding present to his new wife princess Françoise of France when they got married. I know all this is purely speculation. But it would be a nice story. After all, the provenance of the turquoises worn by princesse Françoise has never been very clear, It is said that they belonged to queen Olga, but we have no proof of this. I don't think it is mentioned in prince Christopher's memoirs. And we have never seen any pictures of queen Olga of Greece wearing these famous turquoises. Just a guess.
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