The Saphire parure was a gift of King Willem III to his wife Queen
Emma in 1881.
The design is probarbly by the famous jewelery-designer Oscar Masin
who also worked for the Paris jewelery-firm of Mellerio.
Oscar Masin was a master-jeweler who worked/designed for several jewelery-houses.
The original design of the tiara is already drawn up by him in 1867
but it was 1881 when it actualy came to making and delivering this tiara.
On the 14th of december 1881 the large tiara was delivered to the Dutch
Royal House also together with a second frame (for a much smaller setting
for using only the top row of 27 diamonds from the big Tiara) and also
with two huge diamond and saphire bracelets.
The 31 saphires came from kashmir and the 655 brilliant-cut diamonds
used for this tiara came from the Jagers-Fontein-Diamonds-Mine in South-Africa.
The setting is partly done with "pampille en tremblant" a technique
used often by Oscar Masin and which he perfectionised.
This technique is to put diamonds (in their setting) on very small movable
springs that bring out the most of the sparkle of the diamonds! Because
of this the saphire tiara and also the small other tiara that can be
made with another frame have a great capacity to catch the licht because
of the little movements due to the small springs with which the diamonds
are attached.
In 1928 the tiara was totally renewed when (identical to the original
design) a new frame was made by the dutchjewelery-company "Van Kempen
en Vos" in The Hague. The old frame was made of gold and the new much
lighter frame was made with platinum.
The design of the necklace looks a lot like the tiara's design and is
of later date but made to match the tiara. The big pendant of the necklace
is nowadays often worn as pendant on a bow-pin and that makes it a broche
now, often worn by both Queen Beatrix and Princes Margriet.
The Orange-Nassau Family has lots of saphires in their possesion even
one of 163 carats (to compare: the biggest saphire in the front of the
Tiara is 44 carats). Several of these were originaly bought by Queen
Anna-Pavlovna who loved saphires!
Princess Irene wearing the beautiful diamond Boubon-Parma-Tiara, of
the family of her husband. Some diamonds of the tiara come from the
Duchess of Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette,
she left France in 1830 to Austria. It is said that the tiara was made
in Vienna - probably by the court jeweller Köchert, like an older
tiara onced owened by the Duchess built in style of the XIX siecle
by the jeweller of the french crown. The centerpiece is changeable from
a large diamond to a very fine large ruby, see the pictures above.
This tiara belonged to the Bourbon-Parma family and had been deposed
to a lawyer in Paris. Unfortunately it seems to have been lost acually
since 1996.
The Parma Tiara was trusted, at that time, to an attorney office in
the late 90s by Pss. Marie-Cécilie of Bourbon-Parma, while succession
procedures took place. Misteriously the tiara "got lost" and
the attorney office had to pay € 3.022.500 to the Bourbon-Parma
family.
Un notaire parisien a été condamné mercredi par le tribunal de grande
instance (TGI) de Paris à verser plus de 3 millions d'euros à la princesse
Cécile de Bourbon-Parme pour avoir égaré un diadème serti de diamants
qu'elle lui avait confié en 1996.
La princesse, soeur de Charles-Hugues de Bourbon , chef de la branche
des Bourbons de Parme, avait laissé ce diadème en dépôt à l'étude notariale
Roque, devenue depuis l'étude Escargueil-Bouvat- Martin, située dans
le XVe arrondissement de Paris, dans le cadre d'une succession familiale.
Lorsque la princesse a cherché à récupérer le bijou, l'étude a été dans
l'incapacité de le retrouver. Quant aux causes de sa disparition, "l'enquête
n'a rien donné", a précisé à l'AFP l'avocat de la princesse, Me Patrice
Merville.
Dans un premier jugement, rendu le 23 octobre 2003, le TGI de Paris
a établi la responsabilité de l'étude dans la disparition de l'objet.
Il restait à évaluer le montant du préjudice subi. Le TGI avait donc
nommé un collège d'experts qui ont estimé le préjudice à la somme de
3.022.500 euros, somme que doit donc payer l'étude, selon le jugement
rendu mercredi par la 1ère chambre du TGI, présidée par Bernard Valette.
Ce diadème aurait été initialement la propriété de la duchesse d'Angoulème,
fille aînée de Louis XVI, selon Me Merville. Il daterait du milieu du
XIXe siècle et a probablement été réalisé par un des joailliers de la
couronne de France, selon les experts qui rappellent qu'il est impossible
de reconstituer un diadème identique.
"Il n'est plus possible de trouver les tailles (de diamants, ndlr) anciennes
nécessaires sur le marché du diamant, leur production n'existant plus",
ont fait remarquer les experts, cités dans le jugement.