More Floral Tiaras

Tiara made of horn carved into apple blossoms and leaves with with diamond and pearl embellishments on a gold frame.

I already did a tiara post featuring florals but there are a lot of cool floral tiaras out there so I thought we'd visit some more! This Art Nouveau beauty was made by Paul-Gabriel Liénard in 1905. Apple blossoms and leaves were carved from horn and embellished with blister pearls and diamonds. The tiara frame is gold.

Gilt tiara with blue glass flowers and rhinestone embellishments.

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I wish there was a better picture available of this tiara but I can only find this one. Made in the 1930s by Maison Gripoix, the blue flowers are pate de verre, which is a glass paste. I'll put some links about it down in the rabbit hole as well as a link to Gripoix's website. The tiara frame is gilt and the gems are rhinestones. I just love the look of the flowers - so glossy! I couldn't find any other Gripoix tiaras but there is a lot of jewelry available on auction websites, like this awesome starfish brooch, as well as at their current store.

Georgian paste tiara. The band is gold with a row of round clear gems. On its side, hugging the band of the tiara, is a lilac in a pot. The pot is decorated with large round clear gems. There are 5 gold colored stems with leaves decorated with round green gems. There is a large flower spray on the end, with little floral shapes made from gold colored wire, each one with a clear purple gem in the middle.

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This lovely 19th century spray of lilac is made of gilt and colored paste gems. "Paste" refers to glass cut to look like gems. Using paste gems was a way for people to afford jewelry who might not have been able to afford real gems. Or, if my regency romances are anything to go by, it could also be used if you had to sell the family jewels but didn't want the neighbors to know! The method was discovered by Georg Friedrich Strass in the 1730s. Glass was faceted by hand into the same kind of cuts that were used for diamonds (rose cut, old mine cut) and were then set in closed back settings, backed with foil. The foil could be left plain or it could be colored to mimic a gemstone. When looking up Georgian jewelry you might come across the term "black paste." That's when a small black dot was painted on the bottom of the gem to create an illusion of depth. I've got a couple of really interesting links about paste gems down in the rabbit hole for you all to check out.

Jeweled wreath of roses and one bee with green enameled gold leaves. The roses are set with pink and yellow diamonds.

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Isn't this just gorgeous? This is a Russian diadem made in the mid 1700s by Jérémie Pauzié. This Instagram post, which is in Russian so I had to run it through Google translate, states this belonged to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. The author says there are seven articulated gold and enamel sprigs and that the diamonds are foil-backed (like paste gems but these are the real thing) and this let the jewelry give the diamonds different hues. Elsewhere, though, I've read that these are actual pink and yellow diamonds. The page where I found the photo referenced Geoffrey Munn's book Tiaras: A History of Splendour which says this tiara can be divided into 7 pieces. This was part of a parure - there were matching earrings and a brooch.

A parure with a tiara, brooch and earrings. The tiara looks like a jeweled wreath with roses made from colored diamonds and at least one bee. The earrings each have a bee and several colored diamond flowers. The brooch is a bouquet of colored diamond flowers and green enamel leaves.

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Floral tiara made from white and yellow diamonds. On each side there are 2 smaller flowers, one with white diamond petals and a yellow diamond center and one with yellow diamond petals and a white diamond center. In the center is a large flower with white diamond petals and a yellow diamond center. On each side on the bottom are 5 leaf shapes that look as if they are set with baguette diamonds. There are also several large round diamonds on stems.

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I know, I know, it's kind of diamond-y and we know my feelings on that! But I love the boldness of the flowers and the yellow is so cheery! This floral tiara belonged to Queen Farida of Egypt, the first wife of King Farouk. There are 1,506 white and yellow pave-set diamonds on this tiara and the roses can be taken off the frame to make a devant de corsage (stomacher). One source thinks it might have been made by Van Cleef & Arpels around 1938. It was part of a parure that included a bracelet with 2 massive flowers, a pair of earrings and an extra flower brooch made of white diamonds and rubies. The parure, minus the extra brooch:

Queen Farida's yellow and white diamond floral tiara with matching bracelet and earrings. The bracelet is a wide diamond pave band with 2 very large flowers, both with white diamond petals and a yellow diamond center. The earrings are somewhat hard to make out in the photo but it looks like they are diamond flower shapes facing downward with several dangles of small teardrop shaped diamonds.

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Unfortunately, Farida did not get to keep this stunning piece of jewelry. After about 10 years, King Farouk divorced her because even though she had 3 daughters, she did not provide him with a male heir. She had to return all of her jewelry. Thankfully, it survived the 1952 revolution and today lives in the Royal Jewelry Museum in Alexandria. The source link for both photos is The Royal Watcher Blog and there are a lot of pictures of her wearing the jewels (although a surprising number of them are very blurry).

Silver and gold Art Nouveau tiara set with garnets. The tiara is made of slightly tarnished silver in a foliate motif - it looks like maybe branches and curling leaves. In the center, there are leaves covered in gold and there are 3 large tear-drop shaped almandine garnets with gold caps on the ends and set on silver wires. One garnet is in the middle of the gold leaf central piece while the other 2 wind around on either side.

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We're going to end this week with a 19th century Art Nouveau tiara made from silver, gold leaf and almandine garnets. It's so pretty! I think it looks like something an elven princess might wear. If you go to the source link, you can see that it is available for purchase! Although, price is upon request which I have usually found to mean "too expensive for me."

image of a white rabbit popping out of his rabbit hole, looking around, and going back in. His rabbit hole is surrounded by grass and some carrots in the ground.

Paul-Gabriel Liénard - website is in French and has an incredible amount of information on this Art Nouveau jeweler as well as many pictures of the beautiful pieces he created.
Glass Casting (Wikipedia) - All about glass casting in general, there is a section about halfway down about pâte de verre.
Gripoix - The jewelry house that made the blue glass flower tiara. No tiaras for sale on their website but the jewelry is vibrantly colored and beautiful to look at.
Why Are Georgian "Paste" (Glass) Jewelry Pieces Collected by Museums? (The Sparkling Truth) - Really interesting article all about Georgian paste gems.
Paste Jewelry - Another interesting article on paste gems, but discussing them throughout history, not just the Georgian period. There are also lots of pictures of jewelry - no tiaras but lots of baubles to admire!
Jérémie Pauzié - creator of the floral Russian diadem. He was also responsible for crafting the Great Imperial Crown of Russia.
Stomacher - Wikipedia article explaining what a devant de corsage or stomacher is.

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