A DIAMOND winged tiara made for one of Scotland’s wealthiest aristocrats is to go on show at the V&A Museum of Design Dundee next year.
The specially made headpiece, dubbed a Valkyrie tiara after Norse mythology, was created by jewel house Cartier for Mary Crewe-Milnes, Duchess of Roxburghe.
The high-society figure, part of the Rothschild family, was one of the train bearers at the Queen’s 1947 coronation, having into married the Scottish dynasty 12 years earlier. The couple later split and became embroiled in a bitter row about Floors Castle, near Kelso, with the Duke cutting off heating and lighting to force his estranged wife to leave.
She was 99 when she died in 2014. The tiara, which features more than 2500 diamonds in a gold and silver frame, was commissioned in the year of her marriage. It is now owned by a private collector in Scotland, who has not been named, and will be loaned to V&A Dundee thanks to a deal negotiated through auction house Sotheby’s.
Set to feature in the new museum’s Scottish Design Galleries, it is the last such tiara made by Cartier, after a trend dating back to 1909, inspired by Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. The wings are mounted on coiled springs to give the impression of moving feathers and can be detached and worn as brooches.
The tiara has never before been on public display and Joanna Norman, lead curator of the Scottish Design Galleries and acting head of research at the V&A in Dundee, said: “This tiara is a stunning example of design being directly influenced by the person who commissioned it.
“In 1935, the Duchess of Roxburghe had just married into a Scottish dynasty. When she asked Cartier to make one last Valkyrie tiara she was commissioning a piece of exquisite craftsmanship and unexpected design, inspired by the fashions of her childhood.
“The tiara is an amazing piece which trembles when worn to give a sense of moving feathers. Designed to allow the Duchess to remove the wings and wear them as brooches if she so desired, the attention to detail is spectacular.”
Artist Lord Haig supported Crewe-Milnes during the Floors Castle feud, supplying her with food, candles and paraffin lamps.
The Duke defended his actions by using a then-extant common law which stated that a woman lived in the marital home by licence only.
The dispute was eventually settled out of court and Crewe-Milnes left for London. She was granted a divorce on the grounds of her husband’s adultery and became involved in charity work, acting as patron of the Royal Ballet.
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