Personally, I am not a great fan of the design of the brooch, but on the other hand, I find absolutely lovely and very moving all what this brooch means in terms of marital and parental love. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were certainly a really loving couple, and they both loved their children with an intensity which was quite unusual in the royal families of the time.
Jewellery of the 19th century is full of these small "sentimental" jewels, which coexisted with larger jewels for grander and more formal occasions: medallions or lockets with hair curls of one's children, bracelets with the portraits of the parents, husband or children, etc.
By the way, this brooch could not be worn properly today... because, if you look closely the extremity of the right wing (i.e. the one on the left for us), you can see that a few diamonds and coloured stones are missing! And I can not imagine Queen Elizabeth II wearing a brooch with missing diamonds! (but of course, if H.M. wants to have this small defect fixed, she certainly can afford it!)
on July 11, 2015, 11:57 am, in reply to "
