An empire’s crowning glory
In 2015 a sapphire coronet, designed by Prince Albert for his wife, was set to leave British shores. As the Christmas special of Victoria is due to grace our screens, SANDRA LAWRENCE learns how the jewel was saved for the nation
Did you know that, in 2015, a sapphire coronet designed by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria was destined to leave UK shores? We discover how this important piece was saved for the nation
Acertain amount of discretion often clouds the air around sensitive acquisitions, but when a piece has royal connections, sale details are usually kept very quiet indeed. The exact journey taken by a small sapphire coronet, from prized family heirloom to the centrepiece of a soon-to-be-revamped national collection is shrouded in mystery, but one thing is clear: this glittering piece of British history was worth saving.
When 18-year-old Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, she became the first ‘young’ British queen for almost a century. Victoria’s love of life – and of the handsome prince she married in 1840 – was the chatter in all sections of society, but the queen also needed to be revered as a powerful head of state. A key element of that meant looking the part.
‘After Victoria and Albert got married they liked to look at the gemstones she’d been given,’ says Richard Edgcumbe, senior curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The treasures were, however, from a previous age – heavy jewels intended for older women. It was common practice to re-use stones from old pieces in new settings, and thus Albert set about reworking the collection for their new, younger owner.
The idea was to create working sets (parures) and the prince chose to start with sapphires. ‘Albert had given Victoria a sapphire brooch the day before they were married,’ says Edgcumbe. ‘Her eyes were blue and the sapphire was also a stone connected with royalty and the church; a heavenly blue.’
Victoria hated the crown she had worn at her coronation; it was heavy and uncomfortable. So, in 1840, Albert commissioned Joseph Kitching of royal jewellers Kitching and Abud to make a coronet. He wanted it to be light to wear while still reflecting Victoria’s status. Its shape is based on the Saxon Rautenkranz, a stylised circlet of rue from Albert’s coat of arms, and is made from jewellery given to Victoria by William IV and Queen Adelaide.
The result is dainty, delicate and typically 19th-century. ‘It has a tiered top section with a gallery of little rows of diamonds terminating in trefoil and single-stone finials, known as collets,’ says antique jewellery specialist John Benjamin. ‘Unlike the lighter, whiter jewellery of the 20th
The exact journey taken by a small sapphire coronet, from prized family heirloom to the centrepiece of a national collection is shrouded in mystery
century, it’s mounted on gold; set in silver with old-cut, cushion-shaped diamonds.’ Queen Adelaide’s large, kite-shaped sapphires were bezel-set in yellow gold, ‘a very attractive contrast between the silver and the diamonds’. In 1842, Victoria received her new coronet, and she was delighted. She even chose to wear it for the nowfamous portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.
‘The Winterhalter painting shows Victoria wearing it in a rather unusual way,’ says Benjamin, ‘vertically, on the back of her hair, almost as a bun jewel. A tiara is worn to impress; this is very personal, a lightning conductor between Victoria and Albert.’ Copies of the portrait were distributed among royal relatives, became engravings for ordinary folk to hang in their parlours and were even copied onto Sèvres porcelain.
Albert’s untimely death in 1861, aged just 42, changed everything. Gripped by grief, Victoria
It’s a wonderful jewel, designed by Albert, that shows Victoria in love, that represents her and him. But also it was the jewel of her widowhood
would rarely commission coloured jewellery again. After a five-year absence, she steeled herself to attend the State Opening of Parliament in 1866, wearing her beloved Albert’s coronet.
After Victoria’s death, the piece passed down the royal line and, in 1922, was given to Princess Mary (along with the other sapphire jewels Albert had made for Victoria) as a wedding gift. Now a jewel of the Jazz Age, the coronet sat low, bandeau-style, on the Princess Royal’s brow, though she would later wear it more like a tiara. After Mary’s death in 1965 the coronet was kept by the family. It went on temporary display in 1997 at Wartski, and at the V&A in 2002. It was later sold, for unstated reasons, to a London dealer who, in 2015 sold it on for £5m plus £1m VAT. The anonymous buyer was from overseas.
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest stepped in, advising the Secretary of State to bar the export. ‘It is a major piece of jewellery,’ explains Edgcumbe. ‘It’s important for the study of the young Queen Victoria and also has a close connection with history and our national life.’
London’s Victoria and Albert Museum would make a spectacular home for a piece so intimately connected with its two namesakes. Built as part of Kensington’s cultural district and funded by Albert’s 1851 Great Exhibition, the institution was the royal couple’s baby.
Irish-American financier and hedge-fund manager William Bollinger and his wife Judith have been sponsors of the V&A’s jewellery gallery since 2008. The couple bought the coronet for an undisclosed seven-figure sum, and bestowed it on the museum. It will take centre stage when the gallery reopens after a refresh in 2019.
The year 2019 is doubly significant as it will mark the 200th anniversary of the births of Victoria and Albert. ‘It’s a wonderful jewel, designed by Albert, that shows Victoria in love, that represents her and him,’ says Edgcumbe. ‘But also it was the jewel of her widowhood. It needed to be saved.’ * Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL. 020 7942 2000; vam.ac.uk