Dogwood emerald and diamond necklace Archived Message
Posted by Arthur on January 31, 2016, 7:21 am, in reply to "Re: The British jewel collection needs more emerald tiara(s)"
Thank you, Franck, for your thorough inventory of the emerald rings in the collection of Queen Elizabeth II. Regarding the Dogwood emerald necklace: Leslie Field mentions that Queen Elizabeth II "was also given an emerald and diamond necklace as a wedding present [therefore in 1947] by the city of Victoria, British Columbia, in the shape of dogwood flowers, the province's emblem, but the Queen has never worn this in public". Yet, I found mention of such a gift neither in the list of the Queen's wedding gifts that you have previously published on this board, nor in the articles of the Canadian press reporting about Canadian royal wedding gifts published in 2011 at the time of the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, nor in Buckingham Palace's summer exhibition about the Queen's wedding gifts organized in 2007 on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II's and Prince Philip's diamond wedding anniversary: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/a-royal-wedding-20-november-1947 http://46.236.36.161/microsites/royalwedding1947/ This is quite puzzling and surprising, as I suppose that an emerald and diamond necklace would have been quite a remarkable gift among all the wedding gifts... Another source of confusion comes from the fact that, in May 1971, Queen Elizabeth II wore, during an official dinner in Victoria, capital of British Columbia, a necklace that she had never worn before or after, which seems to be also a gift from the authorities of British Columbia, because the archives of British Columbia have a picture of this necklace (and of the matching bracelet and earrings). But according to the caption (and to the colours) of this picture, the green stones are jade, not emeralds. And during this dinner, Queen received from the Government of British Columbia the insignia of the British Columbian order of the... Dogwood! (the last picture was initially posted by Nellie, I think) The golden elements of the bracelet seem to have the shape of five-petalled flowers. Could it be dogwood flowers? And could Leslie Field have made a confusion about the wedding gift from British Columbia? Could it have beeen made of jade and gold rather than emeralds and diamonds? Or could the 1947 wedding present and the 1971 demi-parure be two differents sets of jewels, but both with dogwood flowers motifs and both presented by the authorities of British Columbia? A lot of questions, and so far very few answers...
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