Five of Princess Alice’s Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt, surviving children and their spouses gave their grandmother a magnificent diamond and sapphire brooch on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1897.
⁃ Princess Victoria Hesse-Darmstadt, (the Duke of Edinburgh’s grandmother), 1884 - Louis Battenberg later Duke Milford Haven, ⁃ Princess Elizabeth Hesse-Darmstadt, 1885 - Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, GD Serge Alexandrovitch de Russie, ⁃ Princess Irene Hesse-Darmstadt, (later, Princess Henry of Prussia), (1888 - Henri de Prusse). ⁃ Prince Ernst Ludwig Hesse-Darmstadt, (later, Grand Duke of Hesse), (1894 - Victoria Melita de Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha) ⁃ Princess Alix Hesse-Darmstadt, (later, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia), (1894 - Nicolas II Tsar Russia).
Gift was “…a brooch with an open pendant heart of diamonds, bearing in the centre the number “60” in Slavonic characters. It has on the top a cabochon sapphire and there are two large sapphire drops.
The jeweller who created this jewel is currently unknown but it could be from the workshops of either Bolin or Fabergé.
The Duchess of Cornwall has been seen wearing the brooch on several occasions, including Remembrance Sunday and in Philadelphia 2007.