Sad news from last weekend! Princess Dorothea of Hesse, Princess of Windish-Grätz has passed away at the age of 91. The niece of the Duke of Edinburgh, and the oldest surviving cousin of King Charles III, had married Prince Friedrich Karl of Windisch-Grätz in 1959.
The daughter of Prince Christoph of Hesse and Princess Sophie of Greece and Hanover, Princess Dorothea of Hesse was a niece of the Duke of Edinburgh. After the death of her father during the Second World War, she became particularly close of the Prince and Princess of Hesse, who had hosted the family when they were kicked out of Schloss Kronborg by American Soldiers, later residing at Schloss Salem, where her step-father, Prince George William of Hanover, was a teacher.
Princess Dorothea joined members of her extended family on a trip to London in 1953, to attend the Coronation of her aunt, Queen Elizabeth II, at Westminster Abbey, later working in an antique shop in London for a period in the 1950s.
In 1959, Princess Dorothea married Prince Friedrich Karl of Windisch-Grätz in a Civil Wedding at Schliersee followed by a Religious Wedding in Munich, as well as a Wedding Gala. The couple had two daughters, Princess Marina of Windisch-Graetz and Princess Clarissa of Windisch-Graetz, as well as six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Prince Friedrich and Princess Dorothea resided in Italy, where he was a businessman, remaining married until his death in 2002. Most notably, the couple attended the Wedding Ball and the Wedding of Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and Princess Sophia of Greece in 1962, a few decades before she sold off the Hesse Aquamarine Tiara at Sotheys in 1996. Online other members of the family, the Princess was a very private individual and in recent years, Princess Dorothea resided in a facility in Belgium where she passed away last weekend.
Our condolences to Princess Marina and Princess Clarissa and their families!
Hesse Aquamarine Tiara
The Hesse Aquamarine Tiara
The elegant Aquamarine and Diamond Parure is composed of an unsigned Tiara, in the garland style set throughout with rose- and cushion-shaped diamonds and decorated with five pear-shaped aquamarines, along with the necklace, signed by Fabergé, designed as a line of step-cut aquamarines in rose diamond borders connected by cushion-shaped and rose diamond ribbon bow motifs and a similar bracelet.
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich gave the different pieces of the Aquamarine and Diamond Parure to Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna around 1900, and while she was not photographed wearing the piece, she seems to worn the Tiara without the Aquamarines for a few portraits.
After Grand Duke Sergei’s assassination in 1905, Grand Duchess Ella sold or distributed her legendary jewellery collection about relatives. While most of the major jewels were given to Grand Duchess Maria Pavlova, the Aquamarine Tiara and Fabergé Parure was given to her brother, Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse and by Rhine, who married Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich that year, but she was also not pictured the Aquamarine Parure.
In 1959, the last Prince of Hesse gifted the Hesse Aquamarine Tiara and Parure to his cousin, Princess Dorothea of Hesse, whose grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, was the niece of Grand Duchess Ella. Princess Dorothea wore the Fabergé Aquamarine Necklace and Bracelet with a Diamond Bandeau the Gala held in Munich on the eve of her Wedding to Prince Friedrich Karl of Windisch-Grätz.
A few years later, Princess Dorothea wore the Hesse Aquamarine Tiara for the spectacular Wedding Ball of Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and Princess Sophia of Greece at the Royal Palace of Athens in 1962.
The following day, Princess Dorothea wore the Fabergé Aquamarine Necklace for the Wedding of Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and Princess Sophia of Greece.
The Hesse Aquamarine Tiara and Fabergé Parure remained in Princess Dorothea’s possession until 1996, when it, along with a few other heirloom jewels, was auctioned at Sotheby’s.
A few months later, the Hesse Aquamarine Tiara was worn by model Chandra North on the runway of the Versace Spring/Summer Haute Couture Show at the Ritz Hotel in Paris in January 1997, following which neither the Tiara or Parure have been seen again!
