Cartier | Tiara | c. 1903
This tiara of graduated flaming hearts and C scrolls was inspired by a vision of France before the Revolution. Louis Cartier encouraged his designers to sketch 18th-century ironwork and architectural ornament in Paris and Versailles, and to study engraved jewellery designs.
Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, was a prominent American heiress who married into the British nobility in 1876. The Duke of Portland recorded that she ‘took Society completely by storm by her beauty, wit and vivacity and it was soon at her very pretty feet’.
Coral Tiara | Phillips Brothers Jewelers | c. 1860-1870 | London
Phillips Brothers, in which the dominant partner was Robert Phillips, were the leading supplier of coral goods in London, as well as being important goldsmiths and jewellers.
Mourning Tiara | cast glass and metal | 1880-1890 | Bohemia
The custom of wearing mourning dress was encouraged by Queen Victoria’s prolonged mourning after the death of her husband Albert in 1861. Formal mourning required black crepe or bombazine clothes along with ‘a few trinkets to accentuate the general sombreness of the costume’. This tiara shows that jet or its substitutes was worn at the highest level of society: only those above a certain social class would have had the occasion to wear a tiara. It is interesting that it is made of ‘French jet’, a cast glass substitute for jet. As supplies of jet were not sufficient to keep up with the demand, dark cast glass known as ‘French jet’ or ‘Vauxhall glass’ was often used.
V&A Museum
