The tiara I just posted was from last week, my computer was being stupid and it wouldn’t post so, we have a double tiara day.
This tiara was made by Boucheron for the Hon. Mrs. Greville (a well-known society maven) in 1921 out of stones salvaged from another tiara. Having no heirs of her own, she left her considerable jewel collection to Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother) when she died in 1942. King George VI was a little uncertain about accepting the jewels.
She had Cartier make it bigger, by adding a little variation to the top line and finishing it off with a marquis-shaped diamond in the center. A change for the better, if you ask me: it needed some pizazz to take it from "giant wall of diamonds" to "giant wall of diamonds with decorations on top".
The Boucheron was destined to become one of her favorites. Indeed, in the Queen Mother's later years, it was one of only two from her collection that she wore publicly.
When the Queen Mother died, her jewels passed to Queen Elizabeth as a sovereign to sovereign inheritance. The Queen has now doled this tiara out to the Duchess of Cornwall, which is a nice nod to the grandmother Prince Charles loved so much. She first wore it for her third tiara appearance, in 2006, and it's been the only one she's worn since.
I wasn't a big fan of this tiara until Camilla started wearing it. It does have a bit of a basket feel to it, and it's one of those pieces that's surprisingly modern for its time. The Queen Mother had a tendency to wear it alongside more traditional pieces, such as Queen Alexandra's pearl and diamond wedding necklace (center photo, Queen Mother collage above).
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