Olivia Henson and Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster, tied the knot at Chester Cathedral on Friday 7th June.
Olivia wore the Fabergé Myrtle Leaf Tiara for this momentous occasion. Fabergé was commissioned to produce this tiara in 1906 for the wedding of Lord Hugh Grosvenor and Lady Mabel Crichton. This diamond set tiara is comprised of two sprays of myrtle leaves and berries, with engraved red gold stalks.
FABERGÉ TIARA IS A STAR AT
THE SOCIETY WEDDING OF THE YEAR
John Andrew of the Fabergé Heritage Council gives some background:
Hugh Grosvenor, The 7th Duke of Westminster, known as Hughie to his friends and whom Tatler magazine has described for years as, ‘Britain’s most eligible bachelor’ is no longer single. On 7thJune he married the down-to-earth Olivia Henson. It was a grand affair at the mid-16th century Chester Cathedral. Hugh inherited the Dukedom in August 2016 on the unexpected death of his father. His inheritance consisted of almost all of London’s Mayfair and Belgravia (over 300 acres in the best part of the capital) as well as estates in Oxfordshire and Cheshire.
The Grosvenor family’s country estate has been Eaton Hall, seven miles from Chester, since the 15th century. The present hall was built in the last half of the 20th century and is surrounded bynearly 11,000 acres.
The vaults at Eaton Hall in Cheshire contain a cornucopia of fine jewels from which a Grosvenor bride can choose jewels, including many tiaras, some of which were presented by past Dukes of Westminster to their wives to wear on their wedding day. It was one of these that Olivia Henson decided to wear on hers – the Fabergé Myrtle Wreath Tiara, which had been commissioned for the wedding of Lord Hugh William Grosvenor to Lady Mabel Crichton on 21st April 1906.
It was created in the workshop of Fabergé’s workmaster Albert Holmström. The Fabergé company did not employ craftsmen, instead it contracted with makers who had their own ateliers to supply jewellery, cigarette boxes, photograph frames or the like, exclusively to Fabergé. The workmasters were responsible for running their workshops. Fabergé normally supplied the designs, always supplied the material and guaranteed the sale of the products – providing they were of therequired standard. The workmasters were allowed to place their maker’s mark on the objects they made. From 1900 most of the workmasters moved their workshops to Fabergé’s new HQ at 24, Bolshaya Morskaya, St Petersburg.
Peter Carl Fabergé’s father Gustav appointed the Finnish August Holmström his principal jeweller in 1857. When August died in 1903, his son Albert, who had been trained by his father, was appointed principal jeweller by Peter Carl Fabergé. Albert’s mark is on the Fabergé Myrtle Wreath Tiara. The Holmström atelier differed from the others as it had its own designer — Alina Holmström, August's daughter and Albert’s sister. Her choice of myrtle leaves is appropriate for a tiara to be worn by a bride at a wedding, as throughout Europe and the Middle East, the folklore associated with myrtle suggests a common symbolism of romance, devotion, beauty and love.
