While Royal Warren(t) spins her tales about the jewels of the Romanovs this week, the hofdames will pop in with tiara takes, where we determine who you would like to see wearing some of the Russian diadems. Hope you have fun and play along! We are starting with Lil’s favorite, the Sapphire Wave.
The Facts
You have to love an historical piece that suddenly pops up again in the collective mind. The Sapphire Wave tiara’s relatively recent reappearance begins with George F Kuntz, a gemologist who worked for the United States Geological Survey and, also, a one-time CEO at Tiffanys. He was well respected in his field, so much so, the stone Kunzite is named after him.
Kuntz owned a copy of The Russian Diamond Fund, containing photos of the jewelry confiscated by the Bolsheviks after the revolution. When he died 1932, he willed his copy to the private library of the United States Geological Survey. In 2012, some enterprising person actually read through the material, and discovered photographs of this tiara. It consists of nine sapphires, set in diamond “waves”, which are also decorated with suspended diamond drops. The effect was of an ocean wave, made up of gems. We know that the tiara was worn by Maria Feodorovna, (Dagmar, sister of Queen Alexandra, and mother of the last tsar, Nicholas II), for a portrait. The current location of this tiara is unknown, but if it were to appear again, who would you like to see it on?
