Princess Victoria was just 18 years old when she was told that she had become the Queen. She took the news calmly and wrote in her diary that night “Very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.” In her first meeting with her privy council just a few hours later she had to be seated on a raised platform in order to be seen as she was only 4ft 11 inches tall. She may have been small but she was very determined and she was certainly not going to be told what to do. The happy marriage to artistic, creative Albert after an unhappy childhood proved prosperous for both Victoria and the whole country.
The importance of Victoria’s lonely, regimented childhood on her jewellery
Her father died when she was just eight months old and she she grew up under a suffocatingly strict regime. She considered her childhood unhappy which made her appreciate family and domestic life which can also be seen in her jewellery. Her mother gave her locket which contained her fathers hair which reminded her of him. When she got engaged to Albert she asked him too to giver her a lock of hair which she mounted in a glass heart-shaped pendant. She wore this almost constantly for the rest of her life as a symbol of their love, devotion and happy life together. Her jewellery collection consisted of dazzling diamonds and magnificent gemstones, but to her, a thoughtful piece given with love would be just as valuable as the ones with fabulous gemstones. She also had a silver necklace made of polished pebbles picked by Albert at Balmoral. The sentimental value and the symbolic narrative of the most significant moments of her life always outweighed the monetary value of her jewellery. Victoria herself made jewellery using hair.
The loved up couple and the white wedding
It was Victoria who proposed to Albert, he said yes and he designed a gold and porcelain set, which included a brooch, earrings, and a necklace depicting the wreath of orange blossoms which she wore on their wedding day seen in the featured picture. Albert also designed the sapphire brooch which she wore for her wedding. This was “something blue”. We can credit Queen Victoria for the tradition of white wedding dresses, as they were not common at the time. Otherwise she was not the fashion icon some designers perhaps would have liked but she did love jewellery.
Image Royal Collection Public Domain
Queen Victoria loved tiaras
Victoria and Albert commissioned several tiaras. Her fondness of tiaras has possibly something to do with her height and young appearance, she is said to have been self conscious about her small size. Prince Albert was creative and something of an architect with a flair for designing and he designed most of the tiaras along with many other pieces. Victoria mentioned in one of her 122 journals that “ Albert has such good taste and arranges everything for me about my jewellery. Prince Albert also designed the Sapphire Coronet which is now on display at V&A, courtesy of the Bollinger family. This was also part of Albert’s wedding gift.
Albert designed this emerald tiara for Victoria which is featured in the Winterhalter painting and a replica of it was made for the Victoria TV series. It consists of 19 emeralds with the largest one weighing 15 carats.
The sentimental gifts from the happy years
The couple exchanged many sentimental gifts from little trinkets, paintings , sculptures, drawings to jewellery. Victoria survived one of assassination attempts aimed at her when she was four months pregnant with her first child so they were overjoyed when their first child also named Victoria was born. Albert commissioned this brooch for her as a Christmas present. ‘The workmanship & design are quite exquisite and dear Albert was so pleased at my delight over it, its having been entirely his own idea and taste’ she wrote in her diary.
Enamel, gold, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, topazes | 3.5 x 6.8 x 1.2 cm (whole object)
Some of the gifts were unusual like the tiny brooch in the form of a thistle has the first milk tooth lost by the firstborn child Princess Victoria as its flower. Also teeth from the stags Albert had shot were used in jewellery like the warrior queen style necklace, which we would now consider macabre, made of 44 teeth from stags hunted in Balmoral. All the teeth in the necklace have a date inscribed in the back when the stag was shot and there is an engraving on the clasp that says “All shot by Albert”
The Empress of India and Koh-i-Noor
The empire expanded under Queen Victoria and at the height of the empire, a quarter of the world’s land surface was ruled by her. The Empress of India’s jewellery collection expanded as well. When the British conquered the Sikh empire in 1849 they got the famous Koh-i-Noor (“mountain of light”) and it was presented to Victoria. The diamond was on show at the Great Exhibition of 1851 where people could go and see it. Albert and the exhibition visitors thought the 186 ct Koh-i-Noor diamond looked dull and disappointing, so Albert had it re-cut to oval brilliant cut shape reducing the weight to 105.6 cts. Victoria felt uncomfortable about accepting the Koh-i-Noor and had been embarrassed to show it to its previous owner, Maharaja Duleep Singh, when he visited her. Apparently he could not speak for several minutes after been shown the re-cut diamond. Victoria wore it as a brooch. Koh-i-Noor is now set in Queen Mother’s Coronation Crown and can also be viewed at the Tower of London as part of the British Crown Jewels.
Fig I. Shaded area is the base.
Fig II. A: flaw; B and C: notches cut to hold stone in a setting; D: flaw created by fracture at E; F: fracture created by a blow; G: unpolished cleavage plane; H: basal cleavage plane.
Fig III. Opposite side, showing facets and peak of the “Mountain of Light”
photo Wikipedia Commons
Victoria, the young widow and Widow’s Crown
Albert’s death from pneumonia at the age of 42 was a huge shock to Victoria. When she returned to public life 5 years after Albert’s death she wore black-and-white widow’s clothing and a white lace mourning veil. The Imperial State Crown is very heavy and could not be worn over her veil so she commissioned the small Widow’s Crown which she became closely associated with and it was placed on her coffin on her funeral. The Widow’s Crown is made of silver and it weighs only five ounces and measures four inches in every direction and it contains 1187 diamonds taken from a large necklace. The crown can also be worn without the arches on the top. You can see it today at the Tower of London.
photo Wikipedia Commons
This blog features only a few of the pieces that belonged to Queen Victoria. Prince Albert would have most likely designed more pieces for Victoria if he hadn’t died at such a young age. His death sent Victoria into a deep depression and she withdrew herself from public life for a long time and she never really recovered. Their wonderful romantic gifts and the effort and enthusiasm they showed when designing pieces is still truly special. Queen Victoria reigned over a time of industrial revolution, educational advances, abolition of slavery and workers’ welfare.
Sources
https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/queen-victoria-and-jewelry
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/queen-victorias-sapphire-and-diamond-coronet
https://www.rct.uk/collection/4834/brooch-of-victoria-princess-royal
Wikipedia
https://www.hrp.org.uk/kensington-palace/history-and-stories/queen-victoria/#gs.7543ko
Valentine Ball in Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India, 1889, Macmillan, vol. II, Appendix, plate VI.
The Empress of India had many pieces de
Gemcadia 