It is another very interesting discovery !!!
Thank you so much !
Franck
Congrats Beth, you have again discovered a supposition and has put the true provenance of the jewels on the table. Maybe the late Duke did gift the Queen with a similar jewel around the same time.
Regards,
Dave.
In May this year Franck posted a query about a brooch worn by Queen Elizabeth II at White City in 1956,
Below is the photo Frack posted.
Bryce solved the mystery for us, identifying it as a brooch commonly referred to as the "Ruby Posy Brooch". As Bryce noted, this was thought to have been a gift from Prince Philip in the 1960s.
See this link for the discussion
https://mb.boardhost.com/historyroyaljewels/thread/1621496412.html
Her Majesty's Jewel Vault refers to it as "The Red Flower Posy Brooch" http://queensjewelvault.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-red-flower-posy-brooch.html and also notes that it is thought to have been a gift from Prince Philip.
Franck's 1956 photo pushed the time line back, and so I hunted for more information on the brooch.
Before I started, I checked to see what information others had found about this brooch, as there is no sense in wasting time replicating research.
Apart from the Queen's Jewel Vault no one had written anything about the brooch.
The brooch was presented to QEII by the Lord Mayor of Bristol when HM visited the city in April 1954.
The press described the brooch as --
The Flower of Bristol has been associated with the city since the 1600s. For a brief overview see the information provided by the University of Bristol.
https://ubbcalumni.com/about-1
Flower of Bristol --the plant,Lychnis chalcedonica
QEII was in Bristol to open the new Council House, the interior of which was decorated with Flowers of Bristol,
When QEII arrived in Bristol and opened the new Council House she wore another large diamond brooch, possibly Queen Adelaide's brooch.
Later in the day HM opened a new city water reservoir in the Chew Valley. For that, the Queen had changed her brooch and wore the newly presented Flower of Bristol brooch.
In the detail below it is possible to make out the basic shape of the brooch.
A slightly better view of the brooch can be seen from this image showing HM later in the day visiting Bath.
By looking at the flowers of the Flower of Bristol, we can see how the designer has based the brooch on the flower.
The brooch isn't one seen regularly on QEII, however, the Queen's Jewel Vault site has recorded a few times it has been worn in recent years.
See http://queensjewelvault.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-red-flower-posy-brooch.html (I am indebted to the research of The Queen's Jewel Vault. Without this blogger's excellent recording, I would have spent days trying to find when QEII wore this brooch)
QEII in 2017
The best image of this brooch was taken at the Newbury Races in 2014. The photographer must have had jewellery lovers in mind!!
Newbury Races 2014. Here we can see clearly the composition of the brooch, the rubies, the gold work and the diamonds.
Jewellery design is not my forte, but I find the strong visual impact of the gold jarring against the white metal used for the stem and leaves.
I wonder what the designer's intentions were when yellow gold was made such a dominant element?
What do others think?
I think that it is appropriate that we re-name this brooch and call it the Flower of Bristol brooch or simply the Bristol brooch .
I favour the former. What do others think?
Finally, below is a video of HM's day in Bristol and Bath in April 1956
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