The Bavarian Lover's Knot Tiara

Photos (clockwise from top left): Crown Princess Antonia of Bavaria; Queen Therese of Bavaria; tiara detail; Queen Therese of Bavaria; tiara detail

Tiara lovers these days are probably more familiar with another lover's knot tiara -- the Cambridge tiara from the Windsor collection -- but it was actually a copy made of a series of look-a-like tiaras from the nineteenth century. But more on that later -- the lover's knot tiara that we're looking at today is one once owned by the former royal family of Bavaria.

The original wearer of this lover's knot tiara, which features large pearls set atop the diamond lover's knot motifs, was Queen Therese of Bavaria. It was made by Casper Rieländer, the court jeweller, in 1825, the same year that Therese's husband, King Ludwig, ascended to the Bavarian throne. Queen Therese certainly deserved some spectacular jewels; Ludwig was renowned for his numerous extramarital affairs (including his notorious liaison with Lola Montez, an affair so problematic that it actually led to his abdication).

When Therese and Ludwig's son, Otto, married Duchess Amalia of Oldenburg, Therese gave the tiara to her new daughter-in-law. In one of those strange twists of fate, Otto had recently been elected king of Greece by an international conference looking to create a stable government for the newly-independent Greeks. And so the tiara passed from one queen's hands to another's, and it became a part of the Greek royal collection.

Otto and Amalia didn't succeed as rulers of Greece; she was deeply unpopular, and he was eventually deposed in favor of Prince George of Denmark. They returned to Bavaria in exile, and the tiara came with them. The lover's knot stayed with the family for many years; the last crown princess of Bavaria, Princess Antonia, was photographed in it even after the monarchy was abolished in 1918. Today, the tiara is displayed in the Residenz Museum in Munich.

For more on this tiara:
Lovers knots Tiara