Dear Maria-Olivia,
I fear I can be of little to no help at all about the Belgian royal jewels. I am just an amateur of royal jewellery, but I do not work in the field of jewellery, or in the luxury industry, or in anything connected to royalty. Therefore, I can not claim to have any specific information, except from what anyone can get from open information sources, i.e. mainly what we can see from pictures from news agencies and newspapers or, even better, documentation released by jewellery experts with insider's connections or by the Royal courts themselves.
Unfortunately, the Belgian royal jewellery is one of the least documented among the royal jewellery collections. The only book I know devoted to this topic ( Bijoux des Reines et Princesses de Belgique , by Christophe Vachaudez) was published twenty years ago, in 2004, and though nicely illustrated, is actually quite poor in substantial information - not that Vachaudez neglected to work seriously, but probably the sign that he wrote this book without any help and collaboration from the Belgian court, and that he could not get access to relevant documentation. Unfortunately, there has been, so far, no Belgian equivalent of Princess Astrid of Norway to disclose all the family secrets about this or that piece of jewellery...
I share of course your regret that the Belgian royal jewel collection seems to be ill-fated, with the inability to constitute a solid collection from the successive generations of Queens and Princesses of Belgium, as a lot of jewels were instead bequeathed here and there to junior family members or distant relatives, and ultimately have disappeared from public view, are lost or ended up sold at auction.
The two main reasons for this situation are, IMHO :
- the many open or muffled feuds which have plagued the history of the Saxe-Cobourg dynasty: Leopold II versus his daughters, Leopold III versus his brother Prince Charles Count of Flanders, Leopold III and Princess Lilian versus Leopold III and Queen Astrid's children and children-in-law, Princess Lilian versus her own children, etc. And we may probably not be over with that, as the eccentric personality of Prince Laurent may turn the succession of King Albert II and Queen Paola, after their death, into a tense family battle if he considers that he has not got his fair share of his parents' inheritance...
- the Belgian inheritance law - very much influenced on this topic by the French "Code Napoléon" - which guarantees that each child has an unfringeable right to a minimal portion of his parents' inheritance, in a rather equalitarian mood (except in specific and restricive conditions, it is impossible to exclude a child from his parents' inheritance) : in this context, transmitting, generation after generation, an intact collection of wealth (weather it is money, stock shares, real estate, or artistic artefacts such as jewellery) is almost impossible.
Putting the Belgian royal jewels in a foundation, similar to the Swedish Bernadotte Foundation or the Dutch or Luxembourg House Jewels Foundations, while granting use of the jewels to all family members, would be certainly a good option to safeguard the integrity of the collection and avoid further dispersion and losses for the future Belgian Queens. King Philippe and Queen Mathilde would be well-inspired to set up such a foundation now, while their four children are still young and single, seem to get on well with one another, and probably do not think too much now about their parents' inheritance in 20 or 30 years...
I do not know, though, how far it is possible (and under which tax conditions) under the Belgian law. Leopold II did something similar with the "Donation Royale", to manage (some of) his real estate belongings; he tried to do it also for the family jewels, but his daughters managed to obtain from the Belgian courts an annulment of their father's will on this issue, as it deprived them of their inheritance. And I am not sure that Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent of Belgium would agree to this solution, which would eventually mean that they are practically deprived from their share of inheritance (and potentially, from the corresponding cash) they could legally expect...
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I cannot send you a message on this board. Your files and finds are really so interesting. Could you help us with the belgians jewels of the past ?? Grateful thanks from Maria Olivia
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Grand-Duchess Marie-Teresa wore Grand-Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte's Belgian diamond tiara, the Nassau pearl drop earrings and the bracelet of the amethyst parure.
Besides the diamond bracelet-watch, Princess Stéphanie wore the Chaumet trellis tiara (without the top pearls) and a pair of diamond earrings in lozenge shape that she has occasionally worn from the beginning of her marriage. Have these earrings been already worn by other members of the Grand-ducal family, or were they newly acquired for Stéphanie?
Once again, a pity that the Grand-Duchess and the Princess did not wear any necklace. A diamond riviere would have looked great on both ladies... and a brooch too!
on March 29, 2025, 1:08 am
