Princess Marie Bonaparte was quite a catch. Not only was she the great-great-niece of Napoleon, she was also wealthy through her mother's family (real estate developers). No surprise then that when she was courted by the son of a King, it was considered an ideal match.
In 1907, at 25 years old, she walked down the aisle with Prince George of Greece and Denmark in Athens. To the Cartier brothers' delight, the wedding jewellery was commissioned from Cartier — royal weddings were like gold dust, both for the boost in sales and for the association with a princess bride, not dissimilar to today really.
In fact, so proud were the team at 13 Rue de la Paix that they held an exhibition, with this diamond tiara the star of the show. The design was a nod to the princess' heritage and the family she was marrying into: the wreath evoked tiaras worn by Bonaparte women, while olive wreaths were worn by brides in ancient Greece. And, in a clever multi-gem twist, the eleven emerald 'olives' could be swapped out for diamonds if desired.
Researching royal weddings is always fun but hearing from those in some way personally connected to them takes it to another level. This rings especially true when speaking to Prince Dimitri (as I've been doing in preparation for our upcoming Cartiers/Romanovs virtual event) as he brings so many of the Cartiers' royal clients — who were members of his family — vividly to life.
Take Princess Marie (or Aunt Mimi as she was known) — turns out she was a real character: intellectual, independent and eccentric. She studied with Sigmund Freud in Vienna (later smuggling him out when the Nazis wanted to arrest him), wrote books on sexuality, became a leading authority in her field and interviewed murderers in prison to determine the cause of their violence.
The photos of Princess Marie in the tiara (2nd image of her wedding day and almost five decades later at Queen Elizabeth II's coronation) come from Prince Dimitri's book Once Upon a Diamond. Highly recommend it — as Galerie Magazine brilliantly summed up, "the most glamorous family scrapbook you'll ever read."
Image Gallery
!
