The Platinum Queen Elizabeth II, wore on her Platinum Jubilee at the balcony one of the three bow brooches.
In 1858 Garrard made this three of these - two large and one small - for Queen Victoria.
The Queen has worn the Victoria Bow Brooch on several important occasions over the years, including to Princess Diana's funeral in 1997.
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, to whom
they passed in 1936, usually wore them singly, as does The Queen, who inherited
them in 1952.
A suite of three, each formed as a naturalistic ribbon bow, transparent-set with
brilliant- and rose-cut stones; each brooch with a suspension loop.
THESE BROOCHES were among the pieces of jewellery made for Queen Victoria
in 1858, following the loss of her grandmother Queen Charlotte's jewels which
included her diamond bows to the King of Hanover .
The new brooches,
of much livelier outline than Queen Charlotte's rather stiff and flat bows, were
made using the Queen's own stones - 497 brilliants and nine roses - taken from
redundant jewelled pieces in her collection.
They were left by Queen Victoria as
an heirloom of the Crown, 2 and thus passed in 1901 to Queen Alexandra and in
1910 to Queen Mary.
Queen Mary tended to wear all three in a vertical row,for example at her
coronation in 1911, as Queen Alexandra had done in 1902; , and, on
occasions, with the 94.4 carat Cullinan III (page 63) suspended from the top brooch,
and two smaller pear-shaped drops from the other two.
Garrard, 25 May 1858: 'Making 3 Brilliant bow Brooches from your Majesty's Diamonds £71 10s.'
R. & S. Garrard & Co., 1858
Diamonds, silver, gold
4.7 × 6.3 cm; 4.4 × 6.3 cm; 4.1 × 5.5 cm
Sources: Royal Collection;RCT;BBC;
