History of Famous Jewels and Collections: Re: A Danish Journey — Part 1: Royal jewels at Koldinghus. Khedive's pearl necklace

What interesting photos Beth!

It seems likely that all pendants on the necklace were detachable from the start.

Interestingly, the pearl clusters which form the top part of the current ear-pendants seem to be of different make than the clusters on the necklace, so they may have been added to the set.

Another hypothesis is that Lovisa favoured ligther earrings, or that she prefered the necklace in its original form (it does look perfectly balanced with the five pendants).

In the interview, Queen Margrethe tells the following:

"The necklace and earrings belonging to the set, however, have a completely different history. But, like my mother and paternal grandmother, I happily use them together with the tiara because the large pearls and diamonds and the overall design the pieces. The necklace consists of two rows of large diamonds, with eight very large pearls placed at intervals, and with three of what are known as 'pendeloques' attached, each with a large poiré pearl surrounded by diamonds. The earrings, which to use an old-fashioned term are called ear pendants, each consist of one large pearl, surrounded by diamonds, suspending large poiré pearl, also with diamonds. The earrings were probably made in my paternal grandmother, Queen Alexandrine's day - from two pendeloques that had originally also hung from the necklace. Actually, carlier photographs show that the chain once had five of these impressive pendants. The necklace, which means the earrings too, were a wedding gift from the viceroy, the Khedive of Egypt, to my great grandmother, the aforementioned Queen Lovisa, who married King Frederik VIlI on 28 July 1869."

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I am still perplexed about how many pendants there were originally on the pearl necklace the Khedive gave to Queen Lovisa as a wedding present.

If I have correctly understood what Thomas said in his post, the necklace as presented in 1869 had 5 pendants.

Queen Lovisa wearing the necklace with 5 pendants

But I presume that it was Queen Lovisa who removed 2 of the pendants as, when she showed the jewel to the Duchess of Teck in 1877, it had only 3 pendants.

Perhaps Queen Lovisa took the extra two pendants on and off at will as I think she might have had all five pendants on the necklace at the wedding of her son to Queen Maud in 1896.

There seem to be 5 pendants worn when the photo below was taken. The information attached to this on the net says it was taken in the early 1900s. It seems to me that it was taken at the same sitting as the first photo in this post as the Queen is wearing the same dress and jewels.

Getty dates this image (which is from the same sitting) as 1896.

Are there other photos of Queen Lovisa showing her with this necklace?