This is the last of my fingers-crossed, please-oh-please-let-it-still-exist Queen Mary tiaras. Well, the last one for a while, at least. I promise. I just can't help it: I love this one.
Today's tiara was a wedding gift to Queen Mary. We shall call it the Some Ladies of England tiara. And I bet you can't guess who gave it to her...that's right, some ladies of England did. (Creativity in tiara naming is clearly underrated.)
It's a diamond and pearl tiara, which makes it fairly basic and all-purpose. And you can also wear it as a necklace (above), which is handy.
It can adorn clothing, too. Can you see it in the above pictures? Mary's wearing it on the neckline of her dress. (This is Mary as Duchess of York with her Duke, all jeweled up for the Duchess of Devonshire's costume ball celebrating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.)
I love the swagged/festoon design on the side, with the raised central motif. I find it reminiscent of two of my favorite tiaras (both of which we simply must discuss in depth some Thursday): the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara that belongs now to Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Maud's pearl tiara that belongs to the Norwegian royal house (shown below in both of its two formats).
And now we must insert the usual disclaimer: this hasn't been seen in a long, long time. Much like the
Surrey Fringe, it hasn't made a public appearance since the early years of Queen Mary's marriage.
Do you think it's still kicking around somewhere? (Don't say no. You'll break my heart.)
UPDATE: My heart is broke, the tiara is no longer in existence. It was broken up to create the
Cambridge Lover's Knot Tiara.
