Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna’s Diamond Fringe Tiara 

Today marks the 105th Anniversary of the Death of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha and Edinburgh, who passed away on this day in 1920! The imperious Romanov Grand Duchess who became Queen Victoria’s daughter-in-law and the Consort of a Sovereign German Duke, today we are featuring Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna’s Diamond Fringe Tiara!

Bolin Ruby Tiara | Diamond Fringe Tiara | Diamond Tiara | Faberge Pearl Tiara | Pearl Brooch | The Jewels of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Sale-Coburg und Gotha and Edinburgh

When Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, the only daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, married Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria, among her many magnificent Wedding Gifts, she received this striking Diamond Fringe Tiara composed of diamond bars divided by diamond spikes, fashioned on the traditional Russian court diadem, the Kokoshnik.

Upon her arrival in the United Kingdom, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna flaunted her Imperial dowry and magnificent jewels, much to the dislike of Queen Victoria and her other sister-in-laws, and she no doubt wore the Diamond Fringe Tiara in the United Kingdom, as well as in Malta before going to Coburg when Prince Alfred inherited the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha from his uncle.

As Duchess of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna notably wore the Diamond Fringe Tiara for the Coronation of her nephew, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, in 1896, along with her stunning Bolin Ruby Necklace.

Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna also wore the Diamond Fringe Tiara for the Coronation of another nephew, King George V, at Westminster Abbey in 1911, when some official portraits were taken.

Upon the Duchess’s death in 1920, the Fringe Tiara was left to the youngest of her four daughters, Princess Beatrice, Duchess of Galliera, known as ‘Baby-Bee’, who had married Infante Alfonso, Duke of Galliera, a first cousin of the King of Spain, in 1909, and notably wore her mother’s Diamond Fringe Tiara at the grand Coronation of her sister, Queen Marie of Romania, in 1922.

A few years later, the Duchess of Galliera wore the Diamond Fringe Tiara at the Wedding of Princess Isabel Alfonsa of Bourbon-Two Sicilies in 1929.

Princess Beatrice wore her mother’s Diamond Fringe Tiara for a striking portrait not long before she sold the Tiara in 1933, reportedly to buy a hospital and outpatient clinic during the Spanish Civil War, but it appears it was to Seattle debts, as Queen Marie wrote:

“Zöllicon 1933 Dec

The rayon diadem of Mama has to be sold

She [Beatrice] had debts with Coutts Bank which she needed to settle.

She seems to think that anybody buying it would get it just for the price of the diamonds and the diadem would be broken up and the stones sold to a diamond merchant valued at something under 150,000 French Francs

She is obviously short of money as she is having to move again.

Fortunately, the buyer was none other than her sister, Queen Marie of Romania, who wore the Fringe Tiara in two portraits by famous artist, Phillip de Lazlo in 1936, for the National Bank of Romania.

The Queen wrote in her diary that de László had arrived at Cotroceni eager to paint “a really royal picture.”  She continued: “Sitting for him is very entertaining…but yesterday’s sitting was exhausting as he insists upon gorgeous and official attire, a thing I have quite given up – so that I had to dig up the old gorgeousness of my royal days and this attire is exceedingly heavy and exhausting to wear.”

Queen Marie records the process in her diary entry for 12 February 1936: “Laszlo suddenly came to me and said that if I would have the patience to sit he wanted to make another picture instead of the one he had begun. He had come with a preconstructed idea, but having now lived so closely in my company he felt he had not properly got hold of my personality of today, in his big picture which was too conventional.

He understood now what I had said to him, when he arrived, that I had shed the time of splendour and sumptuous clothes and having seen me in a certain simple, but very ample black velvet dress with wide sleeves trimmed with dark brown fur, he was haunted day and night with the burning desire to paint me in this, instead of the rather gorgeous, but more queenly, conventional picture he had begun. He could have the patience and energy to begin all over again, would I?” … “He is crazy about this picture, feeling that it is going to be good.  He dreams of a stunning portrait which he will exhibit all over Europe!”

Queen Marie also notably wore her mother’s Diamond Fringe Tiara for the La Petite Entente Banquet at the Royal Palace of Bucharest in 1936.

After her death in 1938, the Diamond Fringe Tiara  was inherited by her second daughter, Queen Marie of Yugoslavia, who had been a widow for four years. Living a relatively normal life in the United Kingdom, she had little occasion to wear the Tiara, which coupled with Second World War and the subsequent exile of the Yugoslavian Royal Family meant that Queen Marie wasn’t photographed wearing her grandmother’s Diamond Fringe Tiara until she decided to auction the piece, along with her Cartier Diamond Eagle, in 1960, and wore it for promotional portraits.

Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna’s Diamond Fringe Tiara was sold for £ 10,800 on July 21, 1960 at Sotheby’s in London to art dealer Levy-Cohen, and hasn’t been publicly seen since. Its current whereabouts are unknown.

Bolin Ruby Tiara | Diamond Fringe Tiara | Diamond Tiara | Faberge Pearl Tiara | Pearl Brooch | The Jewels of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Sale-Coburg und Gotha and Edinburgh

Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik