When Queen Elizabeth visited Canada in 2010, she twice wore a previously unseen Maple leaf brooch:
It was speculated that this brooch was one described by Leslie Field as a gift to Queen Mary from the ladies of Montreal during the 1901 world tour of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (as George V and Mary were known at the time). http://queensjewelvault.blogspot.no/2013/09/the-enamel-maple-leaves-brooch.html
I think I can now confirm this is in fact a brooch from the 1901 Canada tour. There was an exhibition of gifts from the tour at the Imperial Institute in London in May 1902. More than 870 individual gifts were exhibited. A report in The Times 15 May 1902 has the following: "Exhibition of the Prince of Wales´s Presents … Canada, like Tasmania, is represented by a beautiful collection of furs and by some jewelry of great value, notably a bracelet of unalloyed nuggets, from the miners of Atlin, British Columbia, and a branch of maple leaves in gold, the outline and stem being marked by brilliants, the colour shown in enamel, and at the end of the branch a large bouton pearl."
The article doesn´t state who (in Canada) gave her the brooch, but the description perfectly fits the one worn by Queen Elizabeth.
on October 3, 2014, 6:32 am
