The Poltimore Tiara: Princess Margaret’s Wedding Tiara was a Gift to Self
In 2022, a black-and-white photograph of the late Princess Margaret, taken by her husband Lord Snowdon to mark her 29th birthday, proved to be a standout moment at the exhibition ‘Life Through a Royal Lens’ at Kensington Palace. The irreverent image of the princess, pictured smiling in the bathtub, her hair piled high in a bun and wearing the Poltimore Tiara, gave a rare glimpse behind the scenes of royal life. It also captured perfectly the legendary wit of this rebellious princess, Queen Elizabeth II’s younger sister.
Like many of the tiaras crafted by Garrard through the ages, the Poltimore Tiara started life as a private commission. Designed by Garrard in 1870, it was created for Florence, Lady Poltimore, wife of the second Baron Poltimore and Treasurer to Queen Victoria’s household.
Ahead of her engagement to Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret was looking for a special piece of jewellery of her own to wear to their wedding. She could have borrowed a tiara from her sister – Queen Elizabeth II had ascended to the throne in 1952, giving Margaret unfettered access to the many tiaras in the Royal Collection – but instead she chose to do things her way. When the Poltimore family put the Poltimore Tiara up for public auction in 1959, Margaret acquired the jewel for £5,500.
Set with cushion shape and old-cut diamond clusters, alternating with diamond-set scroll motifs, the elegant design evokes the floral motifs favoured by jewellers during the Victorian era. It also cleverly disguises the fact that the Poltimore Tiara is convertible, transforming into a fringe necklace and 11 separate brooches.
Seeing it reappear in the very public setting of Princess Margaret’s wedding in May 1960 was a proud moment for Garrard. The first royal wedding to be broadcast on television, when Margaret arrived at Westminster Abbey in a horse-drawn carriage, an estimated 300 million viewers around the world got their first glimpse of the Poltimore Tiara.
This was not the tiara’s first appearance in front of an audience, however. Just a few months before the royal wedding, Margaret wore the Poltimore Tiara converted into a diamond necklace for a gala ballet performance at the Royal Opera House in Convent Garden. In October of the same year, she wore the necklace once again to a film premiere in Charing Cross.
“Princess Margaret wore the Poltimore Tiara faithfully throughout her life, in its original form and also as a necklace and brooches,” comments Claire Scott, Design and Development Director at Garrard. “The design demonstrates the full extent of the ingenuity and skill of Garrard’s designers and craftspeople of the time. To create a piece that can been worn in so many ways, but also converge seamlessly as a magnificent tiara, is no easy feat. The images of Princess Margaret wearing the tiara in the 1960s with a beehive hairdo illustrate its timeless appeal.”
The photograph of a tiara-wearing Margaret in the bath was taken just a few years after her wedding in 1962 and, like the Poltimore Tiara itself, it wasn’t originally intended to be in the public realm. Lord Snowdon, a successful photographer who worked for The Sunday Times, Vogue and The Telegraph, kept the portrait hidden until four years after Margaret’s death in 2006, when he exhibited it as part of a gallery show in London. The rest, as they say, is history.
This famous piece of royal history made the headlines a second time in 2006 when it went on display at Christie’s London. Part of a collection of 800 of Princess Margaret’s jewels that were set to be auctioned by Christie’s, the tiara achieved the second-highest price of the night, selling for £926,400, almost five times its high estimate, to an anonymous buyer. Disappearing from the public eye as quickly as it arrived, its current whereabouts is unknown.
Read more about Garrard’s most important creations for the British monarchy in Jewellery of the Royal Family: A Garrard History.
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