The Oriental Circlet Tiara: The Queen Mother’s Favorite Tiara

Queen Elizabeth II wearing the Oriental Circlet Tiara. From Getty Images

The Oriental Circlet Tiara is one of the oldest tiaras in the Royal Family's collection. It dates back from the 1850s as a product of Prince Albert’s creative genius and became the tiara that was closely associated with Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was not only the crowning glory of the vastness and the technological advances of the British Empire, it was also a lasting legacy of Prince Albert worked tirelessly it to push through. On May 1, 1851, Queen Victoria opened the Crystal Palace and officially inaugurated the Great Exhibition before a host of dignitaries awed and bedazzled by the structure. At the conclusion of the exhibition, the East India Company presented priceless Indian jewels to the queen.

The Crystal Palace during the Great Exhibition, 1851. Image from Wikimedia Commons

The inquisitive imagination of the creative prince was caught – he wanted to design a tiara for his wife, the result was a diadem with ‘Moghul’ arches. It would be one of the four tiaras that he personally supervised the design and setting. In her diary, Queen Victoria wrote: “Albert has such taste & arranges everything for me about my jewels,’ she wrote. Made partly demountable: the arched outer frame and spires are removeable and the latter can be replaced by single diamonds 'when a lighter & more simple tiara is required.”

The tiara was made by Garrard  in 1853, at a cost £860 (around £110,000 in today's money). The prince had a constant liking for opals, so he set these gem stones at the center of the lotus elements, together with 2,600 diamonds, and framed in gold. Unfortunately, these diamonds originally belonged to Queen Charlotte, the queen’s grandmother and were part of the contested jewels, which the King of Hanover, the queen’s uncle, believed rightfully belonged to him. In 1858, an arbitration ruled in favour of the Hanovers. The diamonds were, thus, removed from the tiara and were replaced with other diamonds, some were acquired and some taken from other royal jewels.

Queen Victoria wearing the Oriental Circlet Tiara

With the death of Prince Albert in 1861, the queen wore only black and white ensemble. She would have little use of her elaborate tiaras and instead she commissioned a new small crown, which she used when performing her ceremonial duties as a monarch and while wearing her dress as a widow. The tiara was kept in the royal vaults and on her death in 1901, Queen Victoria willed the Oriental Circlet together with a suite of jewellery to the crown, for the benefit of future queens.

The next queen, her daughter-in-law, the Danish-born Princess Alexandra, did not share Prince Albert’s fondness for opals, believing they bring bad luck. She had the opals plucked and replaced with the Burmese rubies were originally given to Queen Victoria in the 1870s. If there was anything authentically oriental in this tiara, it was the rubies. Queen Alexandra also had the circlet reduced a little bit.  Despite her penchant for collecting tiaras and for increasing the Royal Family’s jewelry collection, Queen Mary did not seem to take interest in wearing the tiara. Both queens were never seen wearing the tiara.

A commemorative stamp during the silver wedding anniversary of King George V and Queen Elizabeth

It would be next queen consort, Queen Elizabeth, who favoured the Oriental Circlet. In fact, it turned out to be one of her most-worn pieces, wearing it on royal tours, film premieres, important gatherings and state gatherings. The queen even wore it for the official portrait for the commemorative stamp in time her silver wedding anniversary in 1948. When Queen Elizabeth II succeeded her father in 1952, the tiara should have passed on to her, but she allowed her mother to retain possession of it and the Queen Mother kept using her favorite head piece, together with the Boucheron tiara, which she inherited from Mrs. Greville.

Queen Elizabeth wearing the Oriental Circlet Tiara during the State Opening of Parliament in Ottawa, 1939. Image from the Archives of the Law Society of Ontario

Shortly before the Queen Mother’s death in 2002, the tiara was one of the precious royal jewels displayed at the major exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Since inheriting the tiara in 2002, Elizabeth II only wore the tiara once. In 2005, she donned it at the state visit to Malta , three years after the Queen Mother’s death. The tiara was never seen in public since then.