Yes, oh dearest people who read this, it’s time for another theme week! Fret not, the entire theme week guarantees Tiara Time, all the time! (Okay, I’ll wait here, let you get it out of your system…take your time. And you thought Mondays blew.) Well theme week number two is dedicated to the envy-fermenting collection owned and handed down by the Dukes of Westminster. So let’s kick off the Tiaras of Westminster Week with a lil’ kokoshnik I teased you with about a week ago:
this belle-epoque kokoshnik tiara was designed by Chamuet in 1911, specifically for the upcoming Coronation festivites
This azure beauty was added to the Westminster Collection, when the second Duke of Westminster, Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor–nickname “Bendor” commissioned it in 1911. (I am NOT kidding nor am I misspelling! Nevermind the most famous picture of Bendor is taken in a pith helmet…)
(clockwise) the young duke, (ca 1900), the classic pith-helmet look that made Bendor famos, Bendor gets down to business in later years
His grace, Bendor, commissioned this unique tiara from Chamuet, Paris as a gift for his first wife, Constance Edwina (Shelagh) Cornwallis-West, below. 
Go on, tell me that ain’t a society name…if that didn’t convince you, Edwina was this sister of Daisy, Princess von Pless and the youngest daughter of William Cornwallis-West, descended from John West, second Earl de la Warr. If this lineage is too “small time” for you, here’s an interesting side note. Bendor’s first Duchess of Westminster is a descendant of Mary Boleyn. (But not Anne? How does that work out?)
Huh? I’m not ancestry.com but how can you be related to one sister and not the other?
Two hundred and eighty brilliant-cut diamonds make up the forget-me-not blossoms and their vines hang, silver weeping willows setting off an Aegean blue . Chamuet used blue, pilque-a-jour enamel to evoke the texture of the traditional fabric kokoshniks worn by Russian peasant women for centuries.
Plique-a-jour is in no way an easy process to describe…though I found a youtube video for a tchotchke do-it-at-home plique-a-jour.
(Hey, I’m not saying I can do any better; I just like to show off that I can spell tchotchke like THAT!) Dig the pics though, you know it’s AMAZING!
Sometime in between Bendor and recent years, the tiara was sold off…for what other reason but I’m sure the family needed some scratch. I’ve looked high and low but can’t figure out where it was before the current Duke of Westminster bought it back. Update: the Christie’s website claims that–wherever the hell it was–it was being mistaken for a Faberge not a Chamuet. An anonymous personal pronoun claims he/she verified it…and therefore the Duke knew it was his? Vaguery. (Plus they mispelled ‘Faberge on their webpage.
Anyhow, back to the Chamuet Belle Epoque Kokoshnik…Major-General Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, his grace the sixth and current Duke of Westminster recently acquired it anew for the family. This isn’t the first tiara he’s gotten back for the family…his grace has been doing very well for himself, both in the peerage and in the free market at large.
Major-General Hugh Cavendish Gosvenor, the sixth Duke of Westminster with his son, Hugh, Earl Grosvenor, on the Earl’s 21st birthday, 19 January, 2012
TIARA UPDATE! November 10, 2015
The blue enamel Chamuet Kokoshnik was sold at auction at Christie’s Geneva for $667,104. For more inforation (and better photos) click here!
Related articles
- the kokoshnik hallucination follow-up syndrome? (tiarasandtrianon.wordpress.com)
- Revealed: how we pay our richest landowners millions in subsidies (newstatesman.com)
history buff, jewelry whore, chatterbox, mets fan
Pingback: Westminster Tiara Week: the Halo Tiara « tiaras and trianon
Pingback: Westminster Theme Week: the Laurel Wreath Tiara (Wednesday) « tiaras and trianon
Pingback: Westminster Theme Thursday: the Bagration Parure « tiaras and trianon
Pingback: Westminster Tiaras Theme Week: Princess Mary’s Fringe Tiara « tiaras and trianon
Pingback: Fabergé Cyclamen Tiara (Westminster Collection Theme Week) « tiaras and trianon
Pingback: Tiara Time! the votes are in! « tiaras and trianon
That’s quite some corset Edwina has squeezed herself into – the girl deserves a tiara at the very least.
LikeLike
No joke! I’m guessing she was frequently light-headed, thus making that heavy diadem increasingly more difficult to hold aloft!
thanks for stopping by!
LikeLike
Could you explain the connection of West family with the Boleyns? I tried to find it out, but haven’t manager to do so. As I am Polish, the history of UK is not so clear to me at every point.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Magdalena
LikeLike
that will take a little looking into! Besides I’m American so we didn’t learn about any monarchs unless they were involved in a war or a coup d’etat!
Your question is quite thought provoking and I can’t wait to find an answer.
Thanks for your comment!
LikeLike
I woluld be so grateful indeed…
My deep interest on the Cornwallis-West comes form the fact, the elder daugther of the Cornwallis-Wests – Daisy, sister of Shelagh, married Hans Heinrich XV Hochberg, the aristocrat from Prussia. After the II WW the part of land belonging formerly to Hohberg Family started to be a part of the territory of Poland: Lower Silesia (the Książ palace, villas in Wałbrzych) and Upper Silesia (the palace in Pszczyna) etc.
Daisy von Pless, nee Maria Theresa Olivia Cornvallis-West is considered one of the most intriguing and inspiring characters by some Daisy-geeks from the region, including me 😉 I know even 3 people writing blogs exclusively about Daisy von Pless, her life, her family and everything what has evan a slight connection with her.
We are expectantly looking forward to your findings 🙂
Best greetings from Katowice,
Magdalena
LikeLike
oooh! Now I want to read about Daisy too! I’m trying to think which of my books though which to sift for answers. Hmmm.
LikeLike
Her diary is edited in English (“From my private Diary” Daisy Pless if I remember correctly) and there is a little information in the net, but anyway, maybe I am wrong, by my strong impression is that we have aboundant information on her here in Poland, despite she in fact was not Polsh – but born in England, married in Germany… Just a matter of borders moving, you know.
I am sure you will find something on her in English. Barbara Borkowy, a Daisy-fan living currently probabyly in London translates materials from English for her blog. Good luck! Daisy is a wide river of inspiration, believe me. A kind of strong, unusual personality.
LikeLike
The single post in English on Daisy by Mateusz Mykytyszyn – the Daisy-mad-blogger from the Lower Silesia Region:
http://daisyvonpless.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/why-does-walbrzych-need-daisy-by-mateusz-mykytyszyn/
LikeLike
thanks for the link!
LikeLike
The De La Warrs are related to Anne B. as well–it’s just not the same relationship. Maybe your mother has a sister: you are related to both, but in different ways. If you are related to Mary Boleyn (and lots and lots of people are!) she is perhaps, just as an example, your 14x great grandmother. Then Anne is your15x great aunt. That’s it.
(Daisy of Pless, nee Mary Theresa Cornwallis West, was in the 12th generation from Mary Boleyn, her 10x great grandmother, through Mary’s daughter, Katherine Cary, whose own daughter, Anne Knollys married into the West family [to Thomas West 2nd Baron Delaware]. Anne Boleyn would have been Daisy’s 11x great aunt.)
And as an American you should know the De La Warrs because they are responsible for the name of that little state in the midAtlantic there!
LikeLike
You may possibly be interested in Daisy’s jewellery and pieces she was wearing on her head. One of her most famous headpieces is a crown of the duchess of the Holy Roman Empire (unfortunately I do not know the “professional name of that piece; can be found in her diaries, probably on the day describing her wedding):
http://www.zamek-pszczyna.pl/?q=node/1734
It was a wedding present from her father-in-law. The photo was taken in La Fayette Studio in London, on 11th October 1901.
LikeLike
Pingback: tiara update! Chamuet Belle Epoque Kokoshnik of the Westminsters no Longer Part of the Collection | tiaras and trianon