Royal Bling and The Diamond Queen.

We have just enjoyed a week-end of the most fabulous celebrations and events to honour the Queens sixtieth year on the throne. We have been celebrating here at 'Delargo Towers' too.

Now then me dears I have said in previous posts that I should start blogging on fabulous jewellery, so who and what better to start with than Her Maj and her little collection?

We start, as did the Jubilee week-end with Epsom and Queen Mary's Russian Brooch, a three strand pearl necklace (of which she has three) and the Devon Earrings. The earrings must be a firm favourite with the Queen, as she wore them all weekend. These pearl button earrings each have a small diamond on top; they were presented to Queen Mary in 1893 on behalf of the "Ladies of Devonshire".

The Russian Brooch itself has a large square cut diamond and cabochon-cut sapphire set into scroll frame.
The brooch was given to Princess May of Teck by  her sister, the Empress Feodorovna of Russia as a wedding present in 1893 and she in turn she left it to the Queen in 1953.

Moving on to the Thames Pageant with the same pearl necklace and the Devon Earrings; we were treated to a different brooch. This time a diamond brooch in the shape of an eight-point star with a large central diamond:

There are 41 large and further 24 smaller diamonds in the brooch, weighting a total of approximately 40 carats in a collet setting. It dates from the late Victorian era and was left to the Queen by Lady Jardine in 1981:

Bringing up the rear was the Duchess of Cornwall..
She chose a beautiful diamond choker on four strands of pearls. This is a rarely seen piece but she also wore it during the recent Diamond Jubilee Tour of Scandinavia in March:

The Duchess of Cambridge, who doesn’t usually wear any jewellery at all, put on a beautiful
delicate brooch made of two silver dolphins – a gift from the Royal Navy submariners:

 Diamond Jubilee Service, Carriage Procession, Balcony Appearance and Granny's Chips

Camilla wore the same diamond choker on four strands of pearls...

...while the Duchess of Cambridge wore “diamond and pearl” earrings which she had last worn back in July 2011, when she attended her wedding dress display with the Queen. Despite looking every bit regal and authentic, the earrings are actually cultivated pearl and zirconium diamond which retailed at £48 (they are now sold out).

The Queen saved the very best jewel for the very last - and so it was the famous Cullinan III and IV brooch, also known as “Granny’s Chips”, which made its appearance. Considered the most valuable of the Queen's jewels, the diamonds are simply set in almost invisible platinum claws:

The pear-drop Cullinan 3 weighs 94.4 carats, and the square-cut Cullinan 4 is 63.3 carats.

It was a fab week-end despite the weather and a chance to gawp at some fab sparklers!

I must thank Maria Doulton for her on line magazine "The Jewellery Editor" click here to have a look.

The Cullinan Diamond

There is just enough space left to have a quick look at The Cullinan Diamond itself along with the other cut Cullinans 1 to 9:

[above is a replica]

The Cullinan Diamond, mined in 1905 in South Africa, is the largest rough diamond ever found in the world.  It weighed an incredible 3,106.75 carats and measured 4 inches by 2.5 inches; a total of 1,055.8 carats were cut from the gem...

Cullinan 1 - 530.20 carats:

Cullinan 2 - 317.40 carats:

 [Numbers 3 and 4 are pictured further up in the blog]

Cullinan 5 - 18.50 carats:

Cullinan 6 - 11.50 carats and Cullinan 8 - 6.80 carats:

Cullinan 7 - marquise-cut 8.8 carats (on the necklace):

Cullinan 9 - 4.39 carats:

It would have been nice if Her Maj could have given all of them a bit of a dusting over the week end!

ttfn

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