A diamond tiara that once belonged to the British royal family has reappeared nearly 60 years on from its last sighting—at a Malaysian royal ceremony.
The Cartier-designed tiara was worn by Tengku Natasya Adnan, the princess of the Sultanate of Pahang, a state in Malaysia, for her Istiadat Berinai ceremony, a Malay tradition that involves a final stage of beautification prior to a wedding.
The news was broken by Saad Salman, a keen observer of monarchies around the world who runs the website The Royal Watcher. Salman is friends with members of the Malaysian royal family and was able to confirm that the tiara’s provenance with Tengku Ampuan, the Queen Consort of Pahang. The princess wore it affixed with four additional brooches.
“I went to the Palace last night, where the Queen and I have excitedly come upon the conclusion that her Diamond Bandeau must be the one from Queen Mary, as we cannot find any differences,” Salman wrote in a statement on October 27.
The tiara that formerly belonged to Queen Mary affixed with four brooches. Photo: courtesy Saad Salman/HM Queen Azizah of Pahang.
Queen Mary, wife to King George V and grandmother to Elizabeth II, originally commissioned the tiara’s fabrication in the early 1910s. She was photographed wearing the tiara at several public appearances in the 1930s including at the Leicester Square premier of The Ghost Goes West (1935) and during a charity gala at London’s Savoy Hotel in 1939.
Known as Queen Mary’s Diamond Lozenge Tiara (lozenge refers to the rhombus shape into which the stones are organized), it channeled the period’s Art Deco stylings and originally appeared topped with 13 pearls in addition to the two rows of pearls that flank the diamonds.
Queen Mary (furthest right) at Leicester Square Theatre for the first night of The Ghost Goes West, 1935. Photo: Sasha Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
In 1948, Queen Mary loaned it to her granddaughter, Princess Margaret, who wore it (without the pearl top) to the inauguration of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. It was her first official engagement outside of Britain, one she undertook as her sister was pregnant with Prince Charles.
Its final appearance came in a 1965 portrait of Princess Margaret and close watchers of Britain’s royal family had long assumed the diamond tiara was locked up in the royal vaults along with other heirlooms including Queen Mary’s Crown and Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara.
Princess Margaret wearing Queen Mary’s Diamond Lozenge Bandeau at the inauguration of Queen Juliana in Amsterdam, 1948. Photo: Public domain / Dutch National Archives.
Instead, it now appears that the diamond tiara was sold at a New York auction in 1988 with Princess Chulabhorn of Thailand recommending that the now Queen Consort of Pahang buy it. She did so and over the past three decades the tiara has been worn at a host of Malaysian royal appearances including weddings, banquets, official portraits, and, apparently, a sports day.
Despite the revelation, there was a small setback, Salman reported. “In our excitement, the tiara did drop and get slightly damaged, but it will soon be repaired and no doubt worn for years to come.”