Jaw-dropping treasures the British royal family owns
The royal treasure trove
Imagine having a pile of treasure so vast that you didn’t even realize you had a $60 million painting hanging in one of your palaces? From the Crown Jewels to priceless Old Masters, Fabergé eggs to Andy Warhol pop art, the British royal family's Royal Collection is huge. Click or scroll through as we take a closer look at some of the most valuable pieces and where you can see some of them when travel is allowed again.
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Sceptre with the Cross
Surely one of the most valuable items in the Royal Collection, the Sceptre with the Cross (far left in this replica set of the Crown Jewels) is presented to the monarch during their coronation. Weighing over 2.2lb, it has been in use since 1661 but was transformed in 1910 with the addition of the Cullinan I diamond, the largest clear-cut diamond in the world, weighing 530.2 carats and estimated to be worth $495 million.
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Cullinan III and IV diamonds brooch
The Cullinan Diamond, which weighed 3,106 carats in its rough state, was discovered in 1905 at a South African mine and presented to King Edward VII as a gift. It was cut down into nine diamonds, the largest of which are in the Sceptre with the Cross and the Imperial State Crown. Diamonds III and IV, weighing 94.4 and 63.6 carats respectively, were made into a brooch. It is thought to be worth $96.5 million. In total, the Crown Jewels are estimated to be worth around $6.19 billion.
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Imperial State Crown of George I
Made in 1714 for King George I, this crown replaced that of Charles II. It took some of the old crown’s jewels and pearls, adding 265 new pearls, 160 diamonds, six emeralds and two sapphires. It was used until 1838 but then emptied of its jewels and discarded by the royal family. It was acquired by the Brunei royal family in 1995, when it had just been valued at £576,000, which is $1.4 million in today's money, and given back to the UK Crown to be put on display at the Tower of London.
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Crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
This crown was made in 1937 for Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother, for the coronation of her husband, George VI, in 1937. After his death she wore it for the coronation of her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. It contains 2,800 diamonds, including the 105-carat Koh-i-Noor and is the only crown in the Crown Jewels to be made of platinum. It was placed on the Queen Mother's coffin for her funeral in 2002 (pictured).
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St Edward’s Crown
At the end of a coronation, the monarch swaps the Imperial State Crown for the St Edward’s Crown, which is solid gold and weighs a whopping nearly 5lb, being decorated with 444 precious and semi-precious stones. The Queen has only worn it briefly in 1953, although it appears on her coat of arms. It was made in 1661 for the coronation of Charles II after the previous medieval crown was melted down by Parliamentarians in 1649 during the Civil War.
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Victoria’s Small Diamond Crown
This crown is a miniature one made at the behest of Queen Victoria in 1870 to wear over her widow's cap following the death of her husband Prince Albert. It contains 1,162 brilliant and 138 rose-cut diamonds weighing 132 carats taken from a large necklace belonging to the Queen. Diamonds, unlike colored gems, were acceptable to wear in mourning. The crown was Queen Victoria’s personal possession but she left it to the Crown and it is now on display at the Tower of London.
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Diamond Diadem
The diadem, worn by modern-day British queens (including Elizabeth II on British and Commonwealth stamps), was originally made for a king, George IV, in 1820. As was the norm in the 19th century, the gems were initially rented – they would then be removed after a coronation and sent back to the jeweler – but on this occasion they were then sold to the royal family.
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Diamond Diadem
Featuring English roses, Scottish thistles and Irish shamrocks, instead of the fleur-de-lis usually seen on British crowns, it contains 1,333 diamonds, including a four-carat yellow diamond. The Queen traditionally wears the diadem on her way to and from Westminster to give her speech at the State Opening of the UK Parliament (during which she swaps it for the heavier Imperial State Crown) although she didn't this year.
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Imperial State Crown
Although this is a relatively modern artifact, made in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI, the Imperial State Crown contains some of the most historic jewels in the Royal Collection, including the Black Prince’s Ruby, said to have been given to Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) in 1367. The crown is set with 2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and hundreds of pearls. At the center is the Cullinan II diamond, one of the largest in the world.
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Imperial State Crown
The crown that the monarch wears as they leave Westminster Abbey after the coronation, it is also traditionally used on formal occasions, most notably the State Opening of Parliament (pictured). The Queen admits this crown, at 2.3lb, is so heavy that she cannot look down when reading a speech or her “neck would break and it would fall off” – one of the “disadvantages” to crowns, she confesses.
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Queen Mary's Diamond Bandeau
Royal brides are traditionally loaned heirlooms from the Royal Collection on their wedding day and Meghan Markle chose this tiara for her wedding to Prince Harry. It was owned by Prince Harry’s great-great grandmother, Queen Mary, made in 1932, and is formed as a flexible band of 11 sections, set with diamonds and with a detachable brooch as its centerpiece which has a further 10 diamonds. The brooch was given to Mary as a wedding present in 1893 by the County of Lincoln.
Queen Mary's Diamond Bandeau
The Duchess of Sussex wore the tiara to hold her 16.4-foot-long veil in place for her wedding to Prince Harry at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. The trinket sparkled the brightest among the Cartier earrings and bracelet accessorizing her Givenchy wedding gown.
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Delhi Durbar Tiara
This tiara was made in 1911 for Queen Mary, using diamonds from a dismantled tiara. She wore it for a durbar (court meeting) in Delhi, India to mark the coronation of her husband King George V and herself as Emperor and Empress of India, one of the only Indian coronation durbars to be attended by the royals themselves instead of their representatives. The present Queen lent it to the Duchess of Cornwall in 2005.
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Mosaic Fabergé egg
Jeweler Carl Fabergé made 50 Easter eggs for the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, to give his wife. Three now sit in the Royal Collection, acquired by Queen Mary in 1933. The Mosaic Egg, one of those three, is made with diamonds, rubies, topaz, sapphires, garnets, pearls and emeralds, and contains a ‘surprise’ medallion inside, painted with the portraits of the five children of Nicholas and Alexandra. An Imperial egg found by a scrap dealer was valued in 2015 at $25.7 million.
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Lobmeyr glass chandelier
No one is quite sure how or when this ornate floral Victorian chandelier, made by the famed Viennese Lobmeyr glass company in 1855, came to arrive in the Royal Collection but it seems likely it was bought by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It lights up the Audience Room at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Other, less ornate 19th-century Lobmeyr chandeliers retail for more than $23,000.
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Astronomical clock
This 1765 Eardley Norton clock would have been the ultimate gadget of its day, showing the time at 30 locations across the globe relative to Greenwich Mean Time, a year calendar, an orrery of the Solar System, ages and phases of the moon, and high and low water at 32 geographical sea ports. It was bought by George III for £1,042, the equivalent of $228,600 in today's money, for his dressing room at Buckingham Palace.
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The Royal Family in 1846 – Franz Xaver Winterhalter
In 1846 Queen Victoria persuaded the French king Louis-Philippe to release Winterhalter from his position as court painter so he could paint the British royal family to put in her residence at Osborne House. Her favorite family picture, it shows Victoria and Albert bedecked in jewelry and insignia with their then five children. It now hangs in the East Gallery at Buckingham Palace.
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Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession – Frederic Leighton
This huge painting, measuring 17 feet by 7 feet, was Leighton's first major work. It was shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1855 and Queen Victoria bought it for 600 guineas on the opening day. She wrote in her diary: “There was a very big picture by a man called Leighton. It is a beautiful painting… so bright and full of light. Albert was enchanted with it – so much so that he made me buy it."
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The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew – Caravaggio
For many years this Caravaggio was kept at Hampton Court Palace and believed to be a worthless copy of the lost original. It was only in 2006 after it was restored and examined that the Royal Collection declared it to be authentic – and it's probably worth more than $62 million. It was bought by Charles I in 1637, sold during Cromwell’s time and reacquired by Charles II and has been in the royals’ possession ever since.
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington – Sir Thomas Lawrence
Lawrence was specially commissioned by George IV to paint the leaders responsible for the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 and 1815. The king set aside a room especially for their display, where this portrait still hangs: the Waterloo Chamber in Windsor Castle.
Nymph sculpture – Antonio Canova
Antonio Canova spent his final years working on commissions from a visit to the future George IV in 1815. The marble Fountain nymph was delivered in 1819 and installed in the Gothic conservatory of Carlton House (with detailed instructions of how to place and light it), while the other two, Dirce (pictured) and Mars and Venus, arrived in 1824, two years after Canova’s death. Today these sculptures are in the Grand Entrance and Marble Hall at Buckingham Palace.
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Massacre of the Innocents – Pieter Bruegel the Elder
This 16th-century painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder was acquired over a century later by Charles II. Painted as a representation of the murder by King Herod’s soldiers of all male children in Palestine, it was set in Bruegel’s own time. But there are no bodies and no blood. The painting’s first owner, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, ordered that all the dead babies be painted out and replaced with animals, objects and food. There are some 50 Flemish paintings from the 15th to 17th centuries in the King's Dressing Room at Windsor Castle.
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Presumed self-portrait – Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
One of the great artists of the Baroque era, Castiglione was a painter, but became famous for his drawings and prints. He fell from fame around a century after his death but the Royal Collection holds what it says is the “finest” surviving set of his works. This is believed to be a self-portrait and is thought to have been purchased from the British Consul in Venice by George III in 1762.
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Agatha Bas – Rembrandt
“One of the most beautiful portraits” in the collection, according to the Royal Collection Trust, this portrait of Agatha Bas (right) has a companion painting depicting Agatha’s wool merchant husband Nicolaes van Bambeeck, which hangs in Brussels' Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts. There are five paintings by Rembrandt in the Royal Collection, the earliest of which, The Artist's Mother, was presented to Charles I before 1633, and was one of the first works by Rembrandt to reach England. Rembrandts sell for millions. This portrait is on display in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace.
HM Queen Elizabeth II – Lucian Freud
Not all pictures in the Royal Collection are inherited. This rather unflattering painting of the Queen (wearing her Diamond Diadem) was painted by Lucian Freud, the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, at the late British painter’s behest. The picture was declared a “travesty” by one UK newspaper when it was presented by Freud to the Queen in 2002.
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Eos – Sir Edwin Landseer
Eos, the greyhound that accompanied Prince Albert when he came to the UK to marry Queen Victoria, features in several portraits and sculptures in the Royal Collection. This painting by Sir Edwin Landseer is dated 1841 and was presented by Queen Victoria as a Christmas present to her husband. Landseer produced some 40 works for the royal couple. His Monarch of the Glen, one of the most recognizable paintings of Scotland, is valued at $9.9 million.
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The Music Lesson – Johannes Vermeer
The Music Lesson is one of around 34 Vermeers in the world and probably one of the best-known paintings in the Royal Collection. The Dutch artist’s work rarely comes up for sale, unsurprisingly, but his A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals sold for £16.2 million in 2004, which is $309 million today.
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Leonard Da Vinci sketches
One of the most extraordinary sets in the Royal Collection contains some 600 Leonardo Da Vinci drawings, including all his anatomical sketches, such as The Muscles of the Neck and Shoulder (pictured) from 1510-11. They are presumed to have been acquired by Charles II, although it is not clear how or why.
Pop art – Andy Warhol
With so many Old Masters in her collection, it’s a surprise to learn that the Queen is a fan of contemporary art but, in 2012, four screen prints of her by Andy Warhol were bought for the Royal Collection. Made in 1985, they are based on a photograph taken in 1977 for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. It is unknown how much the Queen paid for her pictures.
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Twopenny Blue Mauritian stamp
The Queen is the fifth monarch to inherit the Royal Philatelic Collection, thought to be worth $123.5 million. The centerpiece is an extremely rare Twopenny Blue Mauritian stamp from 1847, valued at $2.47 million and the first stamp to be issued by a colonial post office. It was bought at auction by the future King George V in 1904 and it's said that afterwards a courtier asked him if he had heard that “some damned fool” had just bought it, to which he replied: "I was that damned fool.”
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