Along with its accompanying parure, this magnificent tiara was commissioned in 1804 by Jean Baptiste Bernadotte on the occasion of Napoléon Bonaparte’s coronation as Emperor of France as a gift for his wife, Désirée Clary. Bernadotte and Clary would later become King Carl XIV Johan and Queen Desideria of Sweden and the tiara passed from Désirée to her daughter-in-law, Joséphine of Leuchtenberg. When Joséphine’s granddaughter, Princess Lovisa of Sweden, married the future King Frederik VIII of Denmark in 1869, she was given the parure because the rubies and diamonds echoed the Danish red and white flag and as such it became an integral part of the Danish royal collection of jewellery. Lovisa herself gave the parure as a wedding gift to her daughter-in-law, Princess Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin upon her wedding to the future King Christian X and likewise, Alexandrine passed the parure on to her own daughter-in-law, Princess Ingrid of Sweden, when she married the future King Frederik IX in 1935. The parure would eventually become one of Ingrid’s signature pieces and to this day, it is affectionately known as “Ingrid’s rubies”. When Queen Ingrid died in 2000, she specifically left it for her grandson, Crown Prince Frederik, to give to his future bride and when he married Mary Elizabeth Donaldson in 2004, it found its current bearer. Apart from the tiara, the parure consists of a necklace, a set of earrings, a brooch and a bracelet – all consisting of diamonds and rubies. Through the time, the tiara has undergone two massive changes: In 1947, the then Crown Princess Ingrid added two of the accompanying brooches and to the then quite small wreath – thereby turning it into a more proper tiara while still retaining the wreath structure. In 2010, Crown Princess Mary altered the look of the tiara as well by rearranging the leaves and adding a new frame customised to her own head shape. She also added a ring and a hairpin made from the leftover pieces.
