From Romance to Revolution: The Vladimir Tiara
One of Queen Elizabeth II's most iconic tiaras began its life at the nineteenth-century court of the Romanovs in Saint Petersburg
My year-long celebration of the centenary of Queen Elizabeth II continues today with the latest article in my series on twelve of her tiaras. Today, we’re reunited with a particularly fascinating jewel from the late Queen’s collection: a tiara made for the Romanovs that survived the revolution—and then reached icon status in Britain.
August 28, 1874
The Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg
Marie, the eldest daughter of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, shimmers in diamonds and orange blossoms as she arrives for her wedding to Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, the third son of Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna. The highly-choreographed marriage ceremony makes Marie an official member of the Romanov family, a clan she already belonged to by descent as a great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Paul I.
In honor of her Romanov ancestor, the new Grand Duchess takes the name “Maria Pavlovna” on her marriage. Vladimir and Marie will go on to become two of the most fascinating figures in the final chapter of the Romanov dynasty, reigning over their own shadow court of intellectuals and artists at their home, the Vladimir Palace in Saint Petersburg.
Marie also becomes particularly renowned for her jewelry collection. Among her favorites is a tiara of interlocking diamond circles, able to be worn with or without a set of pearl pendants. For years, it was thought that the tiara was made for her, probably by Bolin, as a present at the time of her imperial marriage.
Newer research, though, has cast doubt on these claims. Galina Korneva and her late sister, Tatiana Cheboksarova, combed the Russian State Historical Archive and discovered that the tiara was likely made by Bolin—but for Maria Pavlovna’s mother-in-law, Maria Alexandrovna. The tiara, they wrote in Jewellery History Today in 2023, was a present to the Empress from her husband to mark the birth of their eldest son, Nicholas Alexandrovich, 1843. When the Empress died in 1880, she bequeathed the tiara to Grand Duke Vladimir, beginning its long association with his wife.
