The Emerald Ivy Tiara

More-often-than-not, Ferrebeekeeper has featured crowns from long ago.  We try to feature crowns from antiquity or the Middle Ages (since that is where monarchs belong) but, because the development of the world is halting and uneven, we have seen quite a few crowns from the early modern era and the nineteenth century.  After saying all that, here is a contemporary crown from the quasi-present.  This is a crown made of emeralds and black gold (which is “oil” in my book, but apparently mean something else to jewelers) which was famously worn by Queen-Consort Rania of Jordan in 2003.  The piece was designed by Solange Azagury-Partridge for the French jeweler Boucheron (who, as far as I can tell) may still hold the piece.  The tiara is in the form of a twining circlet of ivy. Since Rania is both famous and infamous as a fashion icon, the modern elegance of the piece suits her quite well. I tend to prefer crowns to be medieval and symmetric with lots of cabochon gemstones and heavy YELLOW gold arches & crosses, however this piece has an elven charm about it which lifts it above the ugly abstract minimalism of most contemporary pieces.  In fact, projecting backwards, I think it is a shame that more historical crowns don’t feature leaves, animals, insects or suchlike naturalistic details and ornaments.  For example, one of the best crowns, the raven crown, has embroidered skulls and raven heads and looks as awesome as it sounds.  Maybe Queen Rania and Druk Gyalpo, the Dragon King of Bhutan, should hang out more for reasons of pure bling (although the Dragon King is a reformer, whereas the jury is still out on the Hashemite Dynasty).

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