Is the tiara the most useless form of headgear? It isn’t sunproof or rainproof, but I suppose it is thankfully rustproof.
The immense Essex Tiara – now known as the Scroll Tiara, perhaps to sound slightly less blingy – is part of the huge Cartier jewellery show at London’s V&A (12 April – 16 November 2025).
That tiara has performed a dazzling circular trajectory via rich and royal heads. It was made in 1902 by Cartier, ‘the King of Jewellers’, from 1,048 diamonds provided by the Earl of Essex for his wife, dollar railway heiress Adele Beach Grant (1866-1922), to wear to Edward VII’s coronation.
A genuine beauty (one of the “Lovely Five” in British society) and committed vegetarian who worked out by manhandling heavy pumpkins, lovely Adele died in 1922, just six years after the Earl was run over by a taxi.
Her tiara then mysteriously glittered in and out of view and ownership, materialising on Clementine Churchill’s head at Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation, and on Princess Margareta of Romania’s for her 1996 marriage.
It reappeared in 2016, adorning the singer Rihanna on the cover of W magazine —loaned by Cartier, which reacquired it some years previously. With a net worth of $1.4 billion, according to Forbes Magazine, Rihanna could have bought it if she’d like.
Should she like to see it again, it can be admired, alongside 350 other carat-strewn Cartier items, at the V&A.
