During the Tour of East Midlands today, Queen Elizabeth wore one of the
Kent Amethyst brooches.
Kent Amethyst Brooches (there are 3 of them) belong to the Kent demi-parure. This particular brooch consists of a hexagonal-cut amethyst surrounded by diamond sun-rays. It can be worn on its own (as the Queen did today), or with three smaller amethyst hanging pendants (as in
here).
A bit of history.
The Kent Amethyst demi-parure is named so after Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, The Duchess of Kent and Strathearn - Queen Victoria's mother. She appeared to have particular fondness for the stone and had many jewels incorporating them, including the Kent demi-parure. Upon her death Queen Victoria inherited only a few of her jewels (most were distributed among her other children, with the reasoning that the Queen of the United Kingdom had no want or need for additional pieces); among them was a demi-parure of amethysts and diamonds, best known as The Kent Amethysts.
The parure consists of a necklace, three brooches, earrings, and two hair combs. Different elements of the set have been worn by all subsequent Queens (Victoria, Mary, Alexandra, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth II), as well as other royals ladies (for instance, the Queen Mother used to wear one of the brooches from the parure whilst still being a "mere" Duchess of York). The current Queen often wears one of the brooches (today's one); mostly, she wears it on its own, although she has also worn the brooch with the the smaller amethyst pendants attached quite often. The other brooches are rarely seen and it has been speculated that at least one of them is no longer in the Queen's possession. The necklace is worn extremely rarely as well, but at least we know it's still in the "family"; Queen Elizabeth wore it during the State Visit to Portugal in 1984, along with other elements of the amethyst parure.
The first attached picture is of the Kent Amethyst brooch worn on its own.
The the third one is of the brooch with three amethyst hanging pendants. Unfortunately, I have no better pictures at the moment.
Cropped from much larger images and constitute less than 20% of the original
