The Pearl Poire set

The Danish Royal Property Trust’s best-known jewellery is the Pearl Poire set, which was not created as a set but is now regarded and used as such. The jewellery set, also called a garniture, consists of a tiara, necklace, earrings, and a large brooch as well as a smaller brooch – all with distinctive pearls.

The tiara and the large brooch are the set’s oldest pieces and were produced in 1820 for Princess Louise of Prussia’s wedding with Prince Frederik of The Netherlands in 1825. The two pieces are believed to have been made in Berlin and where a gift from the bride’s father, Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. When the granddaughter of Prince Frederik and Princess Louise of the Netherlands, Princess Lovisa of Sweden, married the Danish Crown Prince Frederik (VIII) in 1869, the Dutch maternal grandparents gifted the corsage to her and, a few years later, also the tiara.

The tiara is made of white gold and constructed as a series of stylised, diamond-ornamented lotus flowers, which together form open, slightly tapered arches in slightly increasing height towards the centre of the tiara. From each of the arches hangs a large pear-shaped pearl, thus the name pearl ‘poires’, which dangles with movement. Both the semicircular, ring-shaped base and the tiara’s arches are densely ornamented with ‘old cut’ diamonds on a reflective, silvered based.

The brooch, a so-called ‘corsage’, is made to fasten on the breast part of the dress, hence the name after the French word ‘corps’ for body. The material is white gold densely ornamented with large ‘old cut’ diamonds, and the shape is two, curled up, stylised parts of a plant with a large, round pearl at the top and a diamond rosette at the bottom. From the brooch dangle five diamond-encircled pearl ‘poires’ similar to those of the tiara.

The necklace of the Pearl Poire garniture was a wedding gift for Crown Princess Lovisa in 1869 from the Khedive, or viceroy, of Egypt. The necklace, which was probably made in France, is in white gold with two rows of large ‘old cut’ diamonds, broken up by eight very large pearls, encircled by diamonds.  At the bottom of the necklace hung originally five, but now only three, large pear-shaped pearl ‘poires’ surrounded by diamonds.

The set’s earrings in white gold were created from two of the necklace’s original five pendants, which already in Queen Lovisa’s time could be taken off the necklace and used on the ears. They consist of a large pearl with a wreath of diamonds and, beneath, a hanging diamond-encircled pearl ‘poire’.

The fifth part of Pearl Poire garniture is a slightly smaller, completely round brooch with a large pearl, encircled by two rows of ‘old cut’ diamonds. The brooch, which could also be used as a clasp, a so-called ‘fermoire’ in a string of pearls, was also gifted to Queen Lovisa for the wedding in 1869 by her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, the future Tsar Alexander III and Marija Fjodorovna, born Princess Dagmar of Danmark.