Today marks the Anniversary of the Birth of Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough, who was born on this day in 1877! ! Among the spectacular Wedding Gifts to the Vanderbilt Heiress when she married the Duke of Marlborough was this magnificent Boucheron Diamond Tiara!

Boucheron Tiara | Duchess of Marlborough’s Pearl Necklace | Marlborough Tiara

But first, lets learn about Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough! The daughter of William Kissam Vanderbilt, a New York railroad millionaire, and Alva Erskine Smith, a Southern belle and suffragist, Consuelo Vanderbilt grew up in an abusive and harsh childhood at 660 Fifth Avenue and Marble House in Newport. While secretly engaged to an American, Winthrop Rutherfurd, she was forced to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, gaining a title and place among the British Aristocracy while the Duke used her large dowry to save Blenheim Palace, the family seat.

The couple had two children, the 10th Duke and Lord Ivor, and although she became a popular and influential Duchess the couple mainly lived separately until their divorce in 1926, becoming a prominent example of the marriage of a ‘Dollar Princess’.

The former Duchess married Lt. Col. Jacques Balsan, a French Pilot and textile manufacturing heir, continued her charitable endeavours and residing between France, Florida, and New York, where she passed away in 1964.

When the ‘Dollar Princess’ Consuelo Vanderbilt married the Duke of Marlborough in 1895, she received this Boucheron Diamond Tiara with large pear-shaped Diamonds as a gift from her father, William Kissam Vanderbilt. She wrote:

Marlborough’s ideas about jewels were equally princely, and since there appeared to be no family heirlooms, jewels became a necessary addition to my trousseau. It was then the fashion to wear dog-collars; mine was of pearls and had nineteen rows, with high diamond clasps which rasped my neck, My mother had given me all the pearls she had received from my father. There were two fine rows which had once belonged to Catherine of Russia and to the Empress Eugénie, and also a sautoir which I could clasp round my waist. A diamond tiara capped with pear-shaped stones was my father’s gift to me, and from Marlborough came a diamond belt.”

The Boucheron Tiara was described as:

A magnificent brilliant tiara, of foliage and scrollwork design and surmounted by nineteen large, pear-shaped stones of the finest quality.”

The new Duchess of Marlborough wore her Boucheron Diamond Tiara when she was presented at Court to Queen Victoria, soon after arriving in England.

For my presentation, my wedding dress had been cut low and with the court train looked bridal and festive. Around my waist was the diamond belt my husband had given me and on my head a diamond tiara; there were also pearls in profusion.

More famous is an occasion when the Duchess of Marlborough did not wear a Tiara for a Dinner with the Prince and Princess of Wales.

I remember a dinner in honour of the Prince and Princess of Wales at which I wore a diamond crescent instead of the prescribed tiara. The Prince with a severe glance at my crescent observed, “The Princess has taken the trouble to wear a tiara. Why have you not done so?”

Luckily I could truthfully answer that I had been delayed by some charitable function in the country and that I had found the bank in which I kept my tiara closed on my arrival in London. But such an incident illustrates the over importance attached to the fastidious observance of ritual.

The Boucheron Diamond Tiara was among the jewels the Duchess of Marlborough took with her on a visit to Russia, where it was worn for a Ball at the Winter Palace.

We were privileged to attend three glorious Court functions. For the first, a great ball of three thousand guests which was given at the Winter Palace, Milly Sutherland and I donned our finest dresses. Mine of white satin was draped in lines of classic simplicity and had a tulle train held by a belt of real diamonds. A tiara of the same stones lightened the dark waves of my hair and cascades of pearls fell from my neck.

I looked very young and slight in that shimmering whiteness and my maid delightedly exclaimed, “Comme Madame la Duchesse est belle!” Thus encouraged I felt ready to face the more critical scrutiny of my husband, who wore the Privy Councillor’s uniform with white knee-breeches and a blue coat embellished with gold lace, the feathered hat under his arm. He smiled and said, “At least we look distinguished,” which from him was indeed a compliment.

In 1902, the Duchess of Marlborough wore her Diamond Tiara for the Coronation of King Edward VII, paired with the:

Vanderbilt pearls in roped festoons and superb diamonds, which sparkled all over her corsage and far below her waist.”

The Duchess of Marlborough was one of the four peeresses who held the canopy over Queen Alexandra’s head during the anointing ceremony, as immortalised by Laurits Tuxen. She recalled:

I had taken the precaution to have a very small coronet made to fit inside my tiara, so that when the Queen was crowned I fitted it deftly to its place and watched with amusement the anguished efforts of others whose coronets were either too big or too small to stay in place.

In 1905 she appeared at a musical soirée at the Austrian embassy in  coronet, high crown-shaped, rising at intervals all round in a series of peaks, the tip stone on each peak being an exceptionally large and fine brilliant. She wore a dog-collar of many rows of pearls with diamond slides completely enclosing her throat and many ropes of great pearls besides falling down the bodice

The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough had separated in 1906, but she wore the ‘entire Vanderbilt regalia’, incluidng the Boucheron Tiara, when she attended the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. She said:

They were beautiful indeed, but jewels never gave me pleasure and my heavy tiara invariably produced a violent headache, my dog-collar a chafed neck.

In 1919, the Duchess of Marlborough auctioned the Boucheron Diamond Tiara at Christie’s in London, where it was purchased for £23,000 by S.H. Harris & Son in Bond Street, specifically to reuse the diamonds.

“The auction room was crowded with women. The suggestion is made that the Duchess sold the ornament because tiaras are becoming old-fashioned.”

Boucheron Tiara | Duchess of Marlborough’s Pearl Necklace | Marlborough Tiara

Boucheron Tiara

 Duchess of Marlborough’s Pearl Necklace