A Tiara A Week: Empress Josephine's Amethyst Tiara

Kicking off the Tiara A Week series will be the Swedish Amethyst tiara! My tiara posts will be every Friday, rife with the history of the piece, the jewels that were used in its construction, its current owners, and of course -- plenty of gorgeous pictures showing it off.



The Amethyst Tiara (formally known as Empress Josephine's Amethyst tiara or the Napoleonic Amethyst tiara) is an old piece, per say, dating back to the time of Napoleon. The tiara originated with Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife. Its path to Sweden involved the gifting of the tiara to Josephine's son, Eugene de Beauharnais, for his marriage to Augusta Amalia. Then, the tiara was handed down to Eugene's daughter (named Josephine as well: Josephine of Leutchenberg). She married the future King of Sweden, thus introducing this stunning tiara to the Swedish royals.

Princess Madeleine donned the tiara to the 2012 Nobel Prize Banquet

The tiara can be worn as a necklace as well. Its drawback in this form, however, is its weight; it is extremely heavily in necklace form. Queen Silvia decided to definitively transform the necklace into a tiara, and it is seldom worn as a necklace anymore. 

The piece consists of 15 stunning amethysts surrounded by diamonds, including earrings, two bracelets, and a pin.

Here you can see Queen Silvia wearing the pin, earrings, and necklace.

My favorite wearer of the tiara has to be Madeleine. Her chocolate-y waves framing the deep purple splendor at the Nobel Prize Banquet was the look of the night.

But a special honorable mention goes to Crown Princess Victoria's stunning hair-and-tiara look.

The Swedes really know how to style hair -- the best of the other royals, in my opinion.

Hope you enjoyed this tiara post! This one is a day late, unfortunately. Look forward to the next one on Friday.

Comment your thoughts below!