Your post highlights various topics of importance:
- firstly, after reading your ideas, I am even more convinced that the order for the tiara was devised very early after the King’s accession. It seems logical that the new Queen would have wanted her own grand diamond tiara to wear at her first courts. I also think that the idea of such a important piece might have been (maybe partly) King George’s. Without access to the king and queen’s correspondence and journals it is impossible to be categorical.
- secondly, I do think, as you pointed at, that the Queen was extremely busy in 1910. She was, as you superbly demonstrated, occupied by the creation of her regal image (hence the changing fashions), and that particular jewel seems to have been at the core of this elaboration.
- thirdly, I am still convinced that the tiara was made to accommodate the Cambridge Emeralds. I am certain that immediately after her brother’s death in October 1910 (and perhaps as soon as she became Queen) Queen Mary was trying to acquire the set, and I think she could have considered having the tiara made before the matter of the emeralds was solved.
- lastly, we should keep in mind that the remnant diamonds from the Cullinan raw became available to her at the very same time (in 1910). The lesser stars of Africa may have been used in the tiara while the acquisition of the emeralds hadn’t taken place.
I have always thought that the thin lines of diamonds in this tiara cannot have been designed to suit such massive stones as the lesser stars.
These delays (in the acquisition of the emeralds) and the gift of the lesser stars may have caused the Queen to have minor adaptations made on her tiara, which could explain the late bill.
Sadly, the answers to our questions can only be found in the Royal, and in Garrard archives.
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