Hello Dolls! 

I'm back to show you this magnificent piece, and my favorite from the MSW jewelery. I won't cover the second place tiara as it doesn't have any royalty connection and would not fit the theme of my posts. It's still a pretty tiara nonetheless!

Well, where to start? This tiara isn't actually a tiara. It's a brooch. I can see why Stardoll chose it: it's small (the runners-up jewels are always smaller than the winner's) and it features emeralds, the color and stone of this year's MSW.

The funny part is that this jewel is also Fench, and has Portuguese connections.

This caught me quite off guard. This brooch is part of a real parure (set) I've suggested to Stardoll some months ago before MSW started for Epiphany (apparently they chose it as a MSW winner prize), which is a museum piece that used to belong to one of the people I admire the most even though she died in 1951: Queen Amélia of Portugal.

Born in exile in England as Princesse D'orleans, she was the granddaughter of the claimant to the French throne and married the Crown Prince of Portugal, who later became King Carlos I.

She arrived in Portugal on the 20th of May 1886, and two days later, she and the Prince got married in an opulent cerimony at the São Domingos Church in Lisbon. Along with the guests were the son of Queen Victoria, the future King George V, and her uncle, the Duke of Aumale, precisely the person who gifted the future Queen this magnificent brooch.

Like I said, the brooch is part of the set, but it wasn't the Duke who gifted all the set: Her parents, the Earl and Countess of Paris, gifted the rest, consisting of a beautiful emerald tiara and matching necklace and other smaller brooches and a bracelet. The Queen didn't have her ears pierced, so no earrings were offered, but after the monarchy fell, the set was altered and two pendants from the middle section of the necklace became earrings.

Originally, this brooch had pendants and swags of diamonds that moved with the wearer, they are removable and no one knows where the pendants are now.

These emeralds accompanied the Queen in her most extravagant and grandious occasions, incluiding her own coronation. This can be seen on a photo where she is wearing her Queen robes and part of the set (the necklace, bracelet and other brooches, not this one). She paired it with the Queen Maria Pia Star Tiara, her mother-in-law's tiara, which had en tremblant diamond stars set in a gold frame.

Today, all the jewelery mentioned above are kept hidden in the vault at the Ajuda Royal Palace in Lisbon, but luckly for us, in a couple of years, we will be able to see them, as projects to create a large space of exhibition of the crown jewels is being built. Meanwhile, you can take a look at them on the internet, as they have been photographed in very rare public exhibitions. More recently, this emerald brooch was photographed in great quality, because it (somehow) is being auctioned by Sotheby's, which I find appaling.

Now, off with history, let's dive into the brooch itself.

Set in silver, this beauty is clearly made of emeralds, more specifically, Colombian emeralds, which is said to be the emeralds of the highest quality. The larger one on the center is cut in a cushion shape, and the other two are a blend of cushion and pear shapes. each emerald is sorrouded by single, yellow rose-cut diamonds spaced between each one. The center features an oval frame, and two scrolls of leaves sprout from either side of the brooch in various sizes and chapes.