Greek royal jewels

CP Mary is really quite beautiful. She's stylish aswell; I love the dress she wore in that photo.

Olga, you've hit the nail right on the head as usual.  She is indeed very lovely and seems like a very nice person as well.
I would have thought that the dress that she is wearing in the photo was probably designed to compliment the wonderful parure that she is wearing.  The colour of the dress really suits her (it is a good colour for brunettes).  All in all, a lovely princess (and not by birth!)

Finally I've found the information about the ruby parure.  Vincent Meylan in his book 'Queen's Jewels' has this to say on page 92:
'Desiree Clary's rubies
Strangely enough Europe's most historic, if not richest, treasure trove of jewelry includes not a single ruby.  And yet Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's wife, the famous Desiree Clary, who at one time was engaged to Napoleon I, owned a set of matching diamond and ruby jewelry with an intricate foliate motif.  This parure comprised a diadem, a necklace, a pair of girandole earrings and a brooch, and was given to her by her ex-fiance.  They were the work of a Parisian jeweler whose name history, sadly, had forgotten but whose talent enabled him to create jewelry that was fit for a Queen despite the small size of the precious stones.  Rather than surrounding a single ruby with small diamonds, as is usually the case, the skilful jeweler grouped together four and sometimes five small rubies in a gold prong setting in such a way to create the illusion of a single larger stone, sometimes measuring half to almost an inch across.  Even the girandole earrings with their multiple decorative motifs, a classic in eighteenth century jewelry, were made using a similar technique to create the illusion that each pendant was a large pear-shaped ruby surrounded by diamonds.'

Just to come back to this. Vincent Meylan continues
'All this jewelry remained with Desiree until her death in 1860, when it was given to her great grand daughter, Princess Louise of Sweden who went on to become Queen of Denmark.  Three generations of Danish Queens handed the jewelry down to their daughters-in-law.  In 1935 it was given to Princess Ingrid of Sweden for her marriage to the future King Frederik IX of Denmark.  In 1943 she commissioned a Danish jeweler to enhance the diadem by adding diamond foliate motifs taken from two shoulder brooches.  No one has worn this jewelry since Queen Ingrid died in 2000.'

Until now.  Obviously, as I said previously, this suite of jewels has now been handed to Princess Mary for her personal use.

That ruby parure used to belong to Oueen Ingrid. Crown Princess Mary now has it.

It's a different one that I was referring to from the one seen on Princess Mary (which is lovely). I'll have to get back home to all my info to get the exact information about it.

It's a different one that I was referring to from the one seen on Princess Mary (which is lovely). I'll have to get back home to all my info to get the exact information about it.

So sorry, I thought that I had said that it wasn't the same parure.  BTW, do you have a picture of the complete Greek ruby parure?  
The story of George buying Olga rubies every year reminds me of Queen Margherita of Italy's pearls; apparently her husband Victor Emmanuel, who incidentally was shamelessly and cosistently unfaithful to her, used to buy them for her every year until she had ropes and ropes of them that hung down almost to her knees.  I think I have a photo of her somewhere - I will try to dig it out.

So sorry, I thought that I had said that it wasn't the same parure.  BTW, do you have a picture of the complete Greek ruby parure?  
The story of George buying Olga rubies every year reminds me of Queen Margherita of Italy's pearls; apparently her husband Victor Emmanuel, who incidentally was shamelessly and cosistently unfaithful to her, used to buy them for her every year until she had ropes and ropes of them that hung down almost to her knees.  I think I have a photo of her somewhere - I will try to dig it out.

My fault--I had been responding to Darth Olga re: the provenance of the rubies. That's what happens when I try to cram too much info into too little computer time.  :-/

I had read about Margherita's pearls. What a nice husband.   I think Margherita was really lovely (and a great and loyal friend to Vicky). I've collected a few (not as many as I'd like) images of her but I don't think I have any of her in the ropes of pearls. I'll have to dig around though.

Hi GDElla.  I found this image of Margherita wearing some of her celebated pearls. There is another image of her, taken at the same sitting, that shows the length of her ropes of pearls (and believe me they really are nearly to her knees!); sadly I only have this image in a book called 'Tiara' by Diana Scarisbrick and it is really small - probably too small to be of any real use.  Anyway , this gives you an idea of the number and quality of her fabulous collection of pearls.
I wonder what happened to them all?

Hi grandduchessella and Martyn !

Concerning Queen Margherita maybe you should try the book by princess Maria Gabriella called Gioielli di Casa Savoia. It is a wonderful book about the jewels of the Royal House of Italy and it contains dozens of pics of Margherita wearing her famous ropes of pearls. Some of them were handed down to her daughter-in-law, Queen Elena, who in turn gave a rope to each of her four daughters. Some lovely pics of QM are also to be found in Casa Savoia - Diario di una Monarchia by the same Maria Gabriella. I have both books at home but cannot post pictures (no scanner). Sorry. Hope that helps anyway.

Thanks so much Martyn and Agneschen!

I had actually looked around and do have that image of Margherita--love the tiara as well! That IS quite the collection of pearls. She had presence enough to carry it off.

I also have this one:

Some info on the tiara Queen Margherita is wearing in the pic posted by Martyn : she had it made by Musy (famous Italian jeweller) in 1904 to commemorate the birth of her grandson Umberto (later King Umberto II).

On the occasion of her marriage to Umberto I, Margherita inherited some of the pearls of his mother, the late Queen Maria Adelaide which had been offered to the latter by her own brother the archduke Leopold in 1850. The receipt for them can be seen in the Gioielli di Casa Savoia book indicating the number of pearls that were bought (280) together as their price (24 000 florins).

Thanks for that information Agneschen. The book  'Gioielli Di Casa Savoia' - I take it that the text is in Italian?  I have been trying to learn Italian for some years but keep having to leave it off due to lack of time, thus don't read it terribly well (sadly)
GDElla., that is a lovely image of Margherita, and tinted to boot!  She really did know how to wear quantities of jewels without looking as though she was overwhelmed by them.  There is a lovely photo of her from the 1860's wearing her fabulous emerald parure - stones to rival Olga's!

It's from a book of large royal portraits from around the 1890s. All the photos in it are colored--I got Daisy's in the white dress from it as well. I wouldn't have really pictured her in lilac--more stronger colors--I wonder if it was artistic license? I see the images pop up on ebay but here they're all in one book!  

The one of Margherita in her emeralds--isn't that supposedly the only one of her actually wearing the emeralds? I thought I remember reading that an image was come across and before that no one had actually seen an image to get a look at the collection.

It's from a book of large royal portraits from around the 1890s. All the photos in it are colored--I got Daisy's in the white dress from it as well. I wouldn't have really pictured her in lilac--more stronger colors--I wonder if it was artistic license? I see the images pop up on ebay but here they're all in one book!  

The one of Margherita in her emeralds--isn't that supposedly the only one of her actually wearing the emeralds? I thought I remember reading that an image was come across and before that no one had actually seen an image to get a look at the collection.

Absolutely, GDElla.  It is the only image of Margherita wearing the necklace, tiara, earrings and brooch form her emerald parure.  It is a lovely photo and is in the Vincent Meylan book 'Queens' Jewels'.  Am still struggling with my new scanner so I might have a go at posting it (anything could happen).  Oh, I forgot to thank you for your help with the image posting - have you noticed, the idiot finally managed to master it!
BTW, I think that the lilac is probably a completely arbitrary choice of colour, but it is appropriate and does look lovely

And Queen Ann-Marie

I think these are the tiaras I referenced when talking about Olga's jewels rather than the image that was shown of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark wearing a set with a similar tiara. These were apparently made from some of the rubies that George I gave to Queen Olga each year.

Olga:


then Olga to Nicholas & Helen to Princess Olga and Prince Paul to King Paul and Queen Frederika


from QF to Constantine II and Queen Anne-Marie

GDElla, do you know anything about the lovely ruby necklace that both Anne-Marie and Frederika are wearing?  Do you think that it could have been made fromthe central elements of Olga's choker (that she is wearing with the ruby tiara)?
In another thread, someone referred to a ruby bracelet that Queen Anne-Marie lost at a Swiss airport.  I wonder if it is the one featured in the photo and whether it was from Olga's collection?