Gustav scares the hell outta me sometimes, in special in this one
Looks like an aztec mummy :S
Ps: any info about this picture? Thanks in advanced!
Lol, yes it is a very special kind of "drag". He is wearing
Arvfurstekronan, the Crown of the Hereditary Princes of Sweden, for an opening of parliament during the reign of his father, when parliament still was opened with full pomp an circumstances à la the UK.
(Gustav V did not have a coronation and I think that from his reign on parliament was opened with the regalia just resting on cushions and the royal mantle just draped around the throne, but still in the throne hall of the palace. The present king was enthroned like that, but in his reign, when the monarchy even has lost much of its nominal powers, the king goes to parliament to open it in a suit with no regalia or orders whatsoever :-(
Arvfurstekronan, the 17th-century Crown of the Hereditary Princes of Sweden:
Smaller, similar ducal coronets existed for junior princes of the royal family. Notice the small sheaves (of corn/grain),
vase or
vasa in Swedish!
(All the Swedish regalia are exhibited in the Treasury or Royal Armoury of the Royal Palace in Stockholm. As European regalia go they are very old and extremely interesting, not at least the mysterious Key of State, the up-to-date yet fatally wrong geographical Orb and the true-to-the-Bible vessel for anointment oil... The royal Court's Swedish-language website with regalia picture's here:
RiksregaliernaOne of my favourite Swedish royal pictures is with the Hereditary Princes Crown: Per Krafft senior's portrait of the young Hereditary Prince Gustav (future Gustav IV Adolf) with full royal trappings, including his own crown, said Hereditary Prince's Crown, resting on a cushion (which in Sweden always is embroidered with the "three" heraldic crowns.
Cute, isn't it?
(To be seen at the State Portrait Gallery at Gripsholm Castle)
Also notice that in Sweden the caps (inside the crowns) and mantles of princes always are blue with open coronets embroidered on them, while the royal mantle of course i red, but there is one version with open coronets for wearing before the coronation and one with closed crowns for wearing afterwards. The latter distinction is observed with regard to the royal mantles in Norway too.)
As pre-1905 Crown Prince of Norway, Gustav was the one who finally could have worn the Norwegian
arvefyrstekrone, Crown of the Hereditary princes of Norway, at his father's Norwegian coronation. (Norwegian parliament was and is opened without regalia.) At Carl XIV Johan's coronation there had been no such Norwegian crown yet and his son and heir Oscar (I) wore the Swedish one. One was made in 1846 for the upcoming Norwegian coronation of Oscar I, which never was carried out because the officiating bishop didn't want to crown a Catholic queen, Carl XV didn't have a heir apparent at his coronation, but Oscar II had Gustav, so it's a mystery to me why he didn't wear it.
(In 1906 Olav was probably too small to wear it and that was the last coronation! Luckily the present Crown Princely couple use a heraldic version above their monogramms.) See their
official site for details and look for the revealing details of who has a cap inside the coronet, who has the mere outline of one and who hasn't..... Ok, this is perhaps a little off-topic, but this is after all the Scandinavian section and you see how intertwined the Swedish and Norwegian monarchies are, with the Norwegian Hereditary Princes Crown clearly modelled after the Swedish one....
Thus this beautiful piece of regalia, the only part of the Norwegian crown jewels actually made in Norway (and therefore featuring such native Norwegian gems as amethysts and freshwater pearls) has never been worn:
(All the Norwegian regalia are exhibited next in the Archbishop's Palace next to the coronation cathedral in the coronation city of Trondheim. Very good English-language website here:
The Norwegian Crown Regalia
