Tiaras

T T

iaras

A History ofSplendour

Geoffrey C. Munn

© 2001, 2018 Geoffrey C. Munn World copyright reserved

First published 2001 by the Antique Collectors’ Club Reprinted 2002, 2003, 2008, 2011, 2014 Published in 2018 by ACC Art Books Reprinted 2023

ISBN 978-1-78884-212-9

The right of Geoffrey Munn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed in Slovenia for ACC Art Books Ltd., Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK www.accartbooks.com

Frontispiece: A remarkable group of Fabergé tiaras. Jewellery by the famous Russian goldsmith is rare and his tiaras are rarer still. A photograph of three together is unprecedented (see Plates 271 and 272). (WARTSKI, LONDON)

Title page: A photograph of Margot Asquith (dowager Countess of Oxford and Asquith), probably taken to mark the Coronation of King George VI in 1937. Lady Oxford is checking to see that her coronet will be correctly positioned behind her diamond-set tiara. By Cecil Beaton. (PRIVATE COLLECTION)

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . .6

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

CHAPTER ONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

PROFANETO SACRED

The Classical Revival, The Influence of Napoleon and Josephine

CHAPTER TWO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

DRESSINGTHE HAIR

Excess and change in hair fashion, Hair ornament and jewellery

CHAPTER THREE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

COURTAND SOCIAL

Queen Victoria, Edward and Alexandra, King George V and Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, The Queen, Princess Margaret, The Coronation of 1953

CHAPTER FOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .202

THE TIARAANDTHE COSTUME BALL

Magnificence and extravagance of Costume Balls, Present day equivalents, Lavish use of jewellery

CHAPTER FIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .224

ROYALAND IMPERIAL FRANCE

Jewels commissioned by Kings and Emperors of France, Uncertain politics of the time

CHAPTER SIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .236

THE RETURNTO SOURCES

Revivalism in France, Castellani and the School of Italian Archaeological Jewellery, Giuliano, The Egyptian Revival, Orientalism

CHAPTER SEVEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268

RUSSIAANDTHE RUSSIAN STYLE Intermarriage in the Royal Houses of Europe, The Court of the Last Tsar The Russian Jewellers and their Influence, Fabergé, Cartier, Boucheron, Revolution and Revaluation

CHAPTER EIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .324

INAND OUTOF AMERICA Tiffany and Company

CHAPTER NINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .344

THE TIARAASA WORKOF ART

Art Nouveau, René Lalique, Georges Fouquet, Maison Vever, René Louis Foy, Lucien Gaillard, Frédéric Boucheron

CHAPTER TEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .370

ART DECOAND BEYOND

The Tiara Today

APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .396

CROWN JEWELSAND ROYAL COLLECTIONS

Austria, Bavaria, Denmark, England, France, Italy, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Some European Royal Jewels

NOTES

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .422

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . .425

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .429

PROFANE TO SACRED

There can be little doubt that the first objects used as jewellery would have been taken from nature, and feathers, shells and flowers offered as tokens of affection or esteem. In the ancient world the victorious were crowned with the laurel wreaths of Apollo, and the newly wed with myrtle, sacred to Aphrodite. Today, with our humble wreaths of daisy chains, the custom continues.

The incorruptibility and malleability of gold made it possible for the simplicity and charm of floral tributes to be rendered permanent in precious metal. It is to the gold wreaths and diadems of antiquity that the jewels we now call tiaras partially owe their origins, and so it is important to give these dazzlingly beautiful prototypes some consideration here.

For thousands of years, myths, legends and strange tales have been woven around the

Plate 1 (above): A pediment-shaped gold funerary diadem, 330-300 BC. Dionysus and Ariadne sit back to back whilst being serenaded by muses playing musical instruments. This type of diadem proved to be the inspiration for neo-classical head ornaments made some two thousand years later. Like many of its modern descendants, the jewel is pierced at each end so that it can be secured to the head with ribbons. Said to have come from Madytos. (THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUMOF ART, NEW YORK)

Plate 2 (opposite): A gold pendant disc depicting the head of Athena, goddess of war, from Kul Oba in South Russia, 400–350 BC. She wears an elaborate helmet composed of animal heads, fronted by a diadem decorated with scrollwork. Athena’s head-dress is especially significant, as images from the ancient world of a diadem actually being worn are rarely seen. This magnificent disc, one of a pair, serves to demonstrate that these head ornaments are likely to have evolved from a type of helmet, and that they have always been an emblem of high rank. (THE HERMITAGE MUSEUM, ST PETERSBURG)

DRESSING THE HAIR 1750-1950

It is easy to imagine that it was the grandeur and elegance of the tiara that governed the dressing of the hair. In truth, however, the popularity of the tiara was dependent upon the neo-classical coiffures that were newly fashionable in the age of European imperialism, and a reaction to the extravagant hair ornaments in vogue in the second half of the eighteenth century. Paris fashions, stimulated by a wealthy and adventurous clientele, exerted great influence on all the decorative arts of Europe. French furniture, porcelain, glassware, goldsmiths’ work and jewellery were an inspiration to continental craftsmen and the dressing of hair was no exception to this general rule.1

Considering the extravagance of the French court in the eighteenth century, it is not surprising that both dress and hair were the subject of lavish attention. For a time the Marquise de Pompadour (1721–64), with her mass of naturally beautiful hair, was its focal point: ‘A hundred entrancing ways did she arrange her hair – now powdered, now in all its silky glory, now brushed straight back, ears showing, now in curls on her neck… till the court nearly went mad trying to imitate her inimitable coiffures.’ It seems likely that Louis XV valued such unadulterated displays of natural hair, since Madame du Barry (c.1743–93), who succeeded the Marquise as the King’s mistress, preferred to wear hers this way too.

By the early 1750s, however, those women who were not able to rely on their natural beauty to divert attention from the encroaching signs of age had begun adopting a

Plate 25 (opposite): The Empress Elizabeth of Austria, painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter in 1864. This portrait of the beautiful but tragic Empress shows the full length of her legendary hair. It was so long that it took two maids to dress it every day. She maintained her enviable figure by sessions in her private gymnasium and the strictest of diets. This regimen had the desired effect: the Empress Eugénie, for one, described her as the ‘loveliest crowned head in Europe’. Elizabeth had a spectacular collection of jewellery, which inevitably included a number of grand tiaras. One of these, designed by Kochert, was in the form of ivy leaves (see Plate 354), and was supported to great effect by the Empress’s hair.

Despite her position and wealth, she was a desperately unhappy woman who feared insanity and longed for death. Her wishes were granted when she was stabbed in the heart with a sharpened file in Geneva in 1898. (KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM)

Plate 218: A tiara from the Devonshire Parure, a suite of seven monumental pieces of jewellery made by C.F. Hancock for Countess Granville to wear in Moscow when her husband represented Queen Victoria at the coronation of Tsar Alexander II in 1856. The design of this jewel suggests a Gothic crown. It is set with gems and decorated with champlevé enamels. It culminates in an intaglio of lapis lazuli which is a portrait of the Emperor Commodus (AD 180–192).

(THEIR GRACESTHE DUKEAND DUCHESSOF DEVONSHIRE)

Plate 219: A gold tiara, larger than the one pictured opposite, from the same parure. The jewellery is decorated with enamel in the manner of the sixteenth century and was once set with large diamonds. The medieval and Renaissance sources which inspired the design of the parure are a compliment to the origins of the engraved gems with which they are set. They are too numerous to describe here but the twentyone gems which adorn this tiara culminate in a cameo of Aurora in her biga drawing back the clouds of night. It should be noted that the intaglios and cameos are of the greatest importance and finest quality. They are sufficiently valuable to be worthy of the Earl and Countess when they officially represented their monarch. (THEIR GRACESTHE DUKEAND DUCHESSOF DEVONSHIRE)

Plate 285 (above):A platinum kokoshnik composed of trails of forget-me-not flowers seen against a background of blue plique-à-jour enamel. Closely based on the blue velvet kokoshniks decorated with jewelled ornaments worn at the Romanov court, this tiara makes an amusing visual pun, as it has, as though by alchemy, been turned into blue enamel and diamonds. It is set with 280 brilliantcut diamonds. Purchased by the second Duke of Westminster for his wife, Constance CornwallisWest, from Chaumet in Paris on 19 September 1911, for £375. The jewel left the family for many years until the present Duke acquired it. (Opposite): Detail of the settings of the Chaumet tiara.

(THEIR GRACESTHE DUKEAND DUCHESSOF WESTMINSTER)

ART DECO AND BEYOND

Art Deco was the movement that supplanted Art Nouveau and coexisted with the Machine-Age styles of Le Corbusier, Gerrit Thomas Reitveld, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Bauhaus. It grew out of the modernist and anti-historical elements of Art Nouveau and in most aspects of applied art, with the possible exception of jewellery, its practitioners had rather less regard for the refinement of craftsmanship. Ironically, however, it was not modernism but the adaptation of historical and exotic sources that was to give rise to some of the most exciting pieces of jewellery of the period (Plates 229, 231 and 232).

Although its origins may be traced back to the beginning of the century, the Art Deco movement owes its name to the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Modernes, the first international exhibition of decorative arts to be held after the First World War, which took place in Paris in 1925. There, the couturier Paul Poiret exhibited with the silversmith Jean Puifocat (1897-1945) and the jewellers René Lalique and Jean Fouquet.

Plate 333 (opposite): A model draped in sable and ermine wearing jewellery by Mellerio dits Meller, c. 1929. (MELLERIO ARCHIVES, PARIS)

Plate 334 (above): An archive photograph of the aquamarine and diamond tiara by Mellerio seen opposite. Its strikingly effective geometric lines are redolent of the skyscrapers encroaching upon the New York skyline at the time it was made. It was shown at the International Exhibition in Barcelona in 1929, where it won first prize. (MELLERIO ARCHIVES, PARIS)

Plate 376: A group taken on the Grand Staircase of the Royal Palace, Athens, in 1961, to celebrate the 60th birthday of King Paul of the Hellenes. The Ladies of Royal Blood are wearing the family tiaras.

1.The Queen Mother, Helen of Rumania

2.Princess Paul of Yugoslavia

3.Princess Eugenie of Thurn und Taxis

4.Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent

5.Crown Prince Constantine of Greece

6.Princess Sophie of Hanover

7.King Paul

8.Princess Sophie of Spain

9.Princess George of Greece

10.Prince Juan Carlos of Spain

11.Queen Frederica of the Hellenes

12.Princess Irene of Greece

13.Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands

14.Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Langenberg

15.Lady Katherine Brandram (born Princess of Greece)

16.Princess Irene, Duchess of Aosta

Amongst those grouped behind are: Prince Georg of Hanover, Princess Alexandra of Kent, Princess Beatrix of Hohenlohe-Langenberg, Princess Tatiana Radziwell and Prince Michael of Greece.(ROBERT GOLDEN ESQ )