The Queen is rarely seen without a brooch on her lapel, usually worn to complement her strikingly bright outfits. But Her Majesty’s brooches are more than just pieces of beautiful jewellery: they symbolise deeper meanings and reveal significant aspects of the Queen’s life.
The jewellery expert said: “The biggest and most expensive of all Queen Elizabeth’s brooches is the Cullinan III and IV brooch.
“This is because it features two large stones cut from the Cullinan diamond – the world’s largest diamond ever found.
“This one brooch alone is worth £50,000,000.”
The brooch is made of the third and fourth largest stones cut from the famous Cullinan diamond.
This is how Queen Elizabeth II ended up with the Cullinan III and IV brooch, given to her in 1953.
However, according to Max Stone, Her Majesty doesn’t wear the brooch often.
In 1959, she loaned the jewel to London’s Ageless Diamond exhibition, and, in 2012, it was part of another exhibition at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
However, the Queen did opt to wear it for a state visit to the Netherlands in 1958, and for a thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral on the year of her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
Charlotte White, Head of Design at 77 Diamonds, Europe’s largest online jeweller, told Express.co.uk more about the Queen’s Cullinan collection, saying: “The Queen inherited these legendary diamonds from her grandmother, Queen Mary, in 1953, who adapted the Delhi Durbar Tiara to make the III and IV brooches in 1912.
“The Cullinan set also includes the largest clear-cut diamond in the world, the Cullinan I, which is mounted in the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross, while the second-largest is featured in the Imperial State Crown.”