{"id":2214336,"date":"2025-12-28T06:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T06:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2214336"},"modified":"2025-12-28T06:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T06:08:12","slug":"8-princess-madeleines-ruby-tiara-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/8-princess-madeleines-ruby-tiara-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"#8 (Princess Madeleine\u2019s Ruby Tiara Surprise)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson attend a state banquet in honor of the visiting President of Iceland at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on May 6, 2025 (Claudio Bresciani\/TT News Agency\/Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike many royal families, Sweden\u2019s royals tend to share their tiaras rather generously within the family circle. Even so, it\u2019s still news when a princess wears an antique tiara for the first time, and Princess Madeleine\u2019s debut in her great-grandmother\u2019s ruby tiara lands at the eighth spot on my countdown of the best jewels of the year.<\/p>\n

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Christopher O\u2019Neill, Princess Madeleine of Sweden, and Prince Carl Philip of Sweden attend a state banquet in honor of the visiting President of Iceland at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on May 6, 2025 (Claudio Bresciani\/TT News Agency\/Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In May, the President of Iceland made a state visit to Sweden. On the first evening of the state visit, the King and Queen hosted a state banquet in her honor at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. They were joined by five members of the next generation of the family, for a total of three grand tiaras in attendance<\/a>. Princess Madeleine, the King and Queen\u2019s younger daughter, arrived wearing an electric pink ballgown from her wardrobe archive and a very special royal tiara.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Princess Madeleine of Sweden attends a state banquet in honor of the visiting President of Iceland at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on May 6, 2025 (Claudio Bresciani\/TT News Agency\/Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The tiara is an Edwardian jewel<\/a>, set with diamonds and rubies, with a tall scroll and festoon design. It\u2019s a convertible piece, able to be worn on a tiara frame or taken off the frame and worn as a necklace or a corsage ornament. (Additionally, the extender piece used to make it a necklace can also be worn separately as a bracelet.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Illustrated London News<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s the history of the tiara<\/a> that really makes it interesting. In 1905, Princess Margaret of Connaught, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and a niece of King Edward VII, married the future King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden<\/a> in a glittering ceremony in Windsor. Among her wedding gifts was this tiara, presented to her by her uncle and aunt, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. She took the jewel with her to Sweden and kept it in her collection until her death in 1920.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sigvard and Marianne Bernadotte attend a gala at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, 1980 (Classic Picture Library\/Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Margaret died, the tiara went to her second son, Prince Sigvard. He lost his Swedish royal titles when he married a commoner in 1934. The tiara remained with Sigvard for a time, until he decided to either sell it or loan it (depending on whom you ask) to his father. A contentious back-and-forth ensued. Eventually, the tiara ended up with Sigvard\u2019s nephew, King Carl XVI Gustaf, who sometimes loaned it to Sigvard\u2019s third wife<\/a>, Marianne Bernadotte, to wear for gala occasions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Queen Silvia attends gala for the President of Greece at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on May 20, 2008 (Albert Nieboer\/DPA Picture Alliance Archive\/Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In recent years, the sole wearer of the tiara had been Queen Silvia, who has chosen it with relative frequency, especially for gala events that do not require the grandest diadems from the Bernadotte vaults, like state dinners with countries that do not have royal heads of state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The King and Queen of Sweden attend a jubilee gala dinner to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the founding of the New Sweden Colony in Wilmington, Delaware, on May 11, 2013 (Tim Shaffer\/Reuters\/Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Silvia has also occasionally worn the necklace setting of the piece. In this photograph, taken in Delaware in 2013<\/a>, she pairs the necklace with modern jewelry and a royal blue gown.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Princess Madeleine of Sweden attends a state banquet in honor of the visiting President of Iceland at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on May 6, 2025 (Claudio Bresciani\/TT News Agency\/Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No other Swedish royal lady wore the ruby tiara in public for several decades\u2014until Madeleine\u2019s appearance in the jewel<\/a> at the Icelandic state banquet this May. Significantly, Madeleine\u2019s appearance in the tiara came just ten days before Marianne Bernadotte\u2019s passing. She died at the age of 100 in Stockholm on May 16.<\/p>\n

After the banquet, Trond Nor\u00e9n Isaksen, the Norwegian jewelry historian, mentioned an interesting possibility<\/a>: that Carl Gustaf and Silvia have always intended to pass the tiara along to Madeleine. Perhaps this is just the first of many appearances in King Edward VII\u2019s rubies for Madeleine.<\/p>\n

My countdown of the best royal jewelry moments of 2025 rolls on this afternoon with a spectacular tiara moment from another corner of Scandinavia. See you then!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n