Queen Mary of Denmark has a habit of surprising royal watchers with her jewellery, and on Monday evening she did it again. At the state banquet at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, held for Vietnam’s President Tô Lâm and his wife on the first night of their visit, the Queen wore a sapphire and diamond bandeau that nobody had seen on her before. The Danish Royal House soon confirmed what it was: Queen Alexandrine’s sapphire jewel, back in royal hands and given a new design.
A wedding gift from the last Tsar
The piece dates back to 1898, when Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin married Prince Christian, who reigned as Christian X from 1912 to 1947. Both were related to Russia’s imperial family, and Tsar Nicholas II gave the bride a tiara of Ceylon sapphires surrounded by diamonds. That is why it was long known as the Russian sapphire tiara. Vanity Fair Italia notes that it is thought to have been made by the St Petersburg jeweller Bolin.
The tiara then left the main line of the family. In 1933 it went to Princess Caroline-Mathilde, wife of the King’s younger son Prince Knud, and later passed to her son, Count Christian of Rosenborg, and his wife. After her death in 2014 their daughters inherited it, and in 2018 it was sold at the Copenhagen auction house Bruun Rasmussen for around two million Danish kroner. The private buyer lent it to the Amalienborg Museum, and in 2024 the Royal Collection bought it back.
One jewel, three ways to wear it
Rather than simply polishing it up, the Queen worked with the Royal Collection and the jewellery designers Diana Holstein and Hanan Emquies on a fully reversible new design. According to the Royal House, it can now be worn as a tiara, a necklace or a brooch, which keeps the piece’s history intact while making it practical today. On Monday the slimmer bandeau sat on her head, while the ornament that once topped the tiara was pinned as a brooch to a velvet band on her wrist. She paired it all with a blue sequinned top by the Danish designer Jesper Høvring.
It is the latest in a series of thoughtful jewellery moves since Mary became queen in January 2024, from a bandeau made with diamonds from the Crown Jewels to a tiara brought out in Finland after some 140 years out of sight. Count Ingolf, who remembers the jewel from his childhood, told the Danish magazine Billed-Bladet that seeing it on the Queen in its new form was simply wonderful.
Sapphires and diamonds remain the most regal of pairings. You can find that same deep blue in our sapphire rings, sapphire earrings and sapphire pendants, or wear it at the wrist, as the Queen did, with sapphire bracelets.
Sources: Vanity Fair Italia (20 October 2026); The Danish Royal House (kongehuset.dk); The Court Jeweller (19 October 2026); Nine.com.au (19 October 2026); DR. Featured photo: Marian Florinel Condruz via Pexels, background edited.
