Queen Marie reigned
\nas King Ferdinand’s wife between 1914-1927. She was born in 1875 and was one of
\nthe grand-daughters of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. Her father, duke Alfred
\nof Edinburgh, was the British sovereign’s second son. She was also a first
\ncousin of the last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, through her mother, the Grand Duchess
\nMaria Alexandrovna. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Queen Marie, highly
\nappreciated for the big diplomatic efforts she made to support the Great Union
\nof 1918, was a fascinating, strong personality, a fierce supporter of arts and traditional
\nculture. Just like with other monarchs, her public duties and personal life
\nintertwined, and an apparently intimate story, such as that of her personal jewellery,
\nwas very much influenced by the historical events that Romania went through in
\nthe 20th century. They say her collection included no less than 400
\nitems, pieces of jewellery and precious stones. Unfortunately, most of them
\nhave gone lost, and they are now impossible to recover. Their unofficial
\ninventory has been recently made in the book Queen Marie’s Jewels, written by
\nDiana Mandache and published by the Corint publishing house. The urge to write
\nsuch a book came when the author discovered in the archives of the National
\nCouncil for the Study of the Securitate (political police) Archives, drawings
\nand watercolours illustrating an important part of the Queen’s jewels. These images,
\nalongside period photos and portraits, were the starting point for Diana
\nMandache, who embarked on a journey to recreate the history of Queen’s jewels,
\nstarting from those inherited from her famous grandmother, Queen Victoria. Diana
\nMandache: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
From the Victorian
\nage, two interesting bracelets have made it through several changes in
\npolitical regimes and legislations. One of them had belonged to Queen Victoria.
\nIt has hearts and turquoises with hair strands of her first four children
\nembedded in them. The other one is a golden bracelet, adorned with painted
\nminiatures, portraits of the children of the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Marie’s
\nfather, including that of princess Marie of Edinburgh, the future Queen Marie
\nof Romania. Although these jewels belonged to private collections, they were
\nseized by the communist regime. It was a Bolshevik habit, adopted by the
\ncommunists in Romania after 1948. Moreover, some jewels were not registered,
\nbut they were dismantled, because they were made of parts that could be turned
\ninto smaller pieces.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In addition to the
\njewellery inherited from her grandmother, queen Marie received several pieces
\nas part of her dowry, when she married King Ferdinand. All of them, however,
\nwould later be taken to Russia, along with the Romanian treasure, when the
\ncountry entered WWI in 1916. Only part of the treasure has been recovered and
\nthe Queen’s jewels are unfortunately lost for good. Here is Diana Mandache
\nagain:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The first train
\ncarrying part of the Romanian Treasure left for Moscow on December 14, 1916,
\ntogether with the two iron boxes with Queen Marie’s jewellery. The two boxes
\nwere sent to Moscow without any prior inventory, and that is evidence of the
\nhaste in which everything was done. A piece of news broke in 1920, via a
\ndiplomatic channel, about the Bolshevik Lev Kamenev selling part of Queen
\nMarie’s diamonds in London, not through auction houses, but through private
\ncollectors. Similar information emerged in 1921, namely that some of Queen
\nMarie’s jewels were sold to private collectors in the Scandinavian countries.
\nAfter the war, at the peace conference in Paris, when she carried ad-hoc
\ndiplomatic negotiations, defending Romania’s interests, she wore no jewellery
\nat all. She actually wrote about that in her journals and letters. Secondly,
\nshe wanted to highlight the matter before the Reparation Committee at the Paris
\nConference, which discussed the return of the Romanian treasure.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
After the great Union
\nof 1918 and the coronation of 1922, Queen Marie’s jewellery collection started
\nto be restored through acquisitions, made primarily by the king. Here is Diana
\nMandache once again:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
He purchased for
\nQueen Marie a sapphire and diamond tiara, from her sister Victoria Melita.
\nThen, Ferdinand bought the famous Cartier necklace, with a huge, quite unique
\nsapphire. Of course, through the Romanian Parliament, the crown was ordered
\nfrom the Falize jewellery house. The crown was an exceptional item, with a very
\nspecial design, famous for the combination of gems and the Transylvanian gold
\nit was made of. Most of the items that
\nhave remained in Romania, the most precious of them, were distributed, after
\n1948, to the Finance Ministry and the National Bank, or the State Bank, as it
\nwas known in communism. After that, they were also distributed to some museums.
\nIn her will, Queen Marie left all her jewellery to her family. Obviously, given
\nthe exile, selling some of the items was a necessity. For instance, her
\ndaughter Ileana, an archduchess of Austria, was forced to sell the sapphire
\ntiara, in order to provide for her children and put food on their table. The
\nsame did her other daughter, Mignon, former queen of Yugoslavia, who, in 1960,
\nsold her diamond encrusted tiara. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Currently, Romania’s National History Museum is exhibiting
\nsome of the queen’s jewels, left in the country after the Communists took power
\nin 1948. Besides several broaches and bracelets, the collection also includes an
\namethyst encrusted Maltese cross and a silver, opal and amethyst belt. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New book sheds light on Queen Maries collection of jewellery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[34327,116464],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-169259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-monarchy","tag-romania-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n