Word: queenly
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Last week, on her birthday, London's Victoria & Albert Museum opened an exhibition of Queen Mary's treasures.-some 3,500 items culled from Her Majesty's home, Marlborough House, ranging from a massive 18th century sideboard to a tiny, inch-high jeweled crown that tinkles God Save the King...
Royal Gifts. The show was, as the London Times noted, "almost as much the portrait of a great collector as [of a great] collection." Queen Mary's personality and taste were evident throughout the exhibition, from the lacy finery she wore on festive occasions (exhibited on dressmaker's dummies at the entrance) to the staggering array of bibelots that had caught the royal eye. There were finely fashioned items of Chinese jade, Chelsea porcelain, Battersea enamel, Neapolitan piqué (tortoise shell or ivory inlaid with gold or silver), case after case of tiny, exquisite baubles, splendid examples...
...Czarina in 1914. The egg is made of a transparent mesh of platinum, gold and diamonds, contains a jeweled stand bearing portraits of the Czar's five children. Another Fabergé masterpiece was a 3-in. grand piano of Siberian jade. The most valuable item in Queen Mary's collection: a Potsdam bloodstone box mounted with gold and encrusted with diamonds, supposedly a gift of Frederick the Great to the Empress Catherine the Great...
Some of her treasures Queen Mary got as gifts from royal relatives all over Europe, but most of them were prizes won in a long lifetime of stalking antique stores. Her Majesty's great green Daimler was a familiar sight parked in front of London shops. When she arrived, sometimes on less than an hour's notice, the dealer closed his doors, let the old lady roam through all crannies. Some dealers kept a special drawer for her, in which they put aside items of the kind she favored. Others, knowing her penchant for exploring, prepared their shops...
Celestial Grandmother. Queen Mary never haggled over prices, but she rarely overpaid. And she performed many acts of royal kindness for favored dealers. When one once tripped in the Queen's presence, she said: "I am sure you need glasses. I shall send you to my optician." Another dealer, who collected Chinese lion figures, got one as a present from Queen Mary every Christmas for 20 years; the last one arrived last Christmas, months after her death. It had been wrapped and consigned far in advance...