Ancient History Jewelry Stories - Tiara Tuesday, Queen Victoria's Ruby Muscat Tiara

For this installment of Tiara Tuesday, I have one of the precious few true ruby crowns that isn't from the 20th century- the Muscat Tiara!
A coronation gift to one of the OG colonizing queens (someone recently referred to her as a kleptomaniac in the comments and I can't get over it), this gorgeous example of Persian style goldsmithing was sent by the Sultan of Muscat. It's made of multiple teardrop shaped panels in graduated sizes, creating a paisley motif, heavily adorned with rose cut rubies and "lasques" (thin, sometimes unfaceted diamonds), but the real magic is in the painted panels on the inside. They're a delicate juxtaposition to the heavy gem studded fronts.
It turns out, Vicky's prince consort, Albert, fancied himself a bit of a designer, and suggested some additional pearls that I don't feel add anything at all to the piece. In the video I said it was just the strand, but I now believe it's everywhere where you can see pearls awkwardly tied on the inside. It's possible the pearls came from a pair of necklaces, which were also a gift from the Sultan. I'm also starting to suspect that the gold band behind the teardrop shaped pieces isn't original, either, but was added whenever the pearls were, and that the individual pieces were originally meant to be able to flip, so it could be worn with the painted sides facing out.
I do think the tiara would have been better off without all of the extra distraction, and I dare say it's an insult to the Sultan of Muscat to add trimmings to such a gorgeous gift. A gorgeous gift that is held in the Crown's Indian Collection, despite not being from India at all.
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