Tiara of Maria II
is a jewelled, ornamental crown made for Queen Maria II of Portugal in the 1830s-40s, set in sapphires and diamonds
The Tiara of Maria II (Portuguese: Tiara de D. Maria II) is a jewelled, ornamental crown made for Queen Maria II of Portugal in the 1830s-40s, set in sapphires and diamonds. It is the oldest extant tiara that can be linked to a Portuguese sovereign.
Having found its way to the Swedish royal family through inheritance, the jewel is currently in a private collection, having been sold at auction on 12 May 2021 by Christie's in Geneva.
History
On stylistic grounds, the tiara can be dated to around the 1830s or the 1840s. It was certainly in the Queen's possession by 1846: it features in a portrait of the Queen by Ferdinand Krumholz, dated that year, that currently hangs in the Throne Room of Ajuda National Palace.
Maria II had been restored to the throne in 1834, after the conclusion of the Portuguese Civil War and the abdication and banishment of her uncle, usurper Miguel I. The young Queen had spent the duration of the Civil War in Paris, under the care of her stepmother, Amélie of Leuchtenberg: after her return to Lisbon, she introduced Parisian fashion and customs to the Portuguese court. Unlike what happened with previous monarchs, who usually sent envoys and plenipotentiaries abroad to buy fine luxury items and fashionable clothes on their behalf, the Queen chose her own jewellery herself, showing her cultured sensibilities and specific taste.
After the Queen's death in 1853, each of her seven children inherited part of their mother's private jewellery collection. The 1854 inventory, drawn up by court assayers João Pedro Lourenço and João Estanislau de Sousa, lists the tiara as "a diadem comprising nine detachable pieces, the central one largest... currently studded in one thousand four-hundred and fifteen brilliant-cut diamonds, five are missing"; the document values the tiara at 2.000$000 (2 contos de réis).
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 1, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q111181654. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1846, 1834 and 1853.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tiara of Maria II” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.