Re: Kent amethyst parure which Queen Victoria left to the Crown-- Is there a tiara? Archived Message
Posted by Arthur  on June 25, 2016, 11:01 am, in reply to "Kent amethyst parure which Queen Victoria left to the Crown-- Is there a tiara?"
Thank you very much, Beth, for your research in the archives of the papers of the time. These press reports are fascinating - though they sometimes raise more questions than they solve ones! 
I do not have the book Crown Jewels of Europe written by Lord Twinning, but Vincent Meylan, in his book Bijoux de Reines, has quoted the list published by Twinning of the jewels designated by Queen Victoria as “heirlooms of the Crown”. According to these sources, the Kent amethyst parure includes “a necklace, a brooch, a pair of earrings and two hair combs”.
So no tiara is mentioned. Noticeable too is that only one brooch is mentioned, whereas we usually consider that the parure includes three brooches: that could mean that two of the hexagonal amethyst brooches were already integrated in the necklace (the two sunray-motif elements worn on both sides of the central amethyst of the necklace).
 
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