Thursday, February 12, 2015

Prince Hans-Adam, His Birthday and a Bejewelled Wedding Gift

On Saturday, Prince Hans-Adam II will celebrate his 70th birthday. Already tomorrow, there will be a reception hosted at Schloss Vaduz. The Prince will celebrate his actual birthday together with his family. In an interview with 1 FL TV he revealed that "my children, grandchildren and some of my siblings will be there. I believe there will be a cake according to an old recipe by Julie." 

Julie is Julie Hahnl, who started to work for the Princely Family in 1926 at the age of 15 when she was hired as a kitchen maid for Jagdschloss Thalhof in Lower Austria. After the death of Prince Johann II, she worked for Prince Franz I and became chef after five years. After the wedding of Prince Franz Josef II and Princess Gina, she moved to Liechtenstein with the couple. Even after her retirement, she continued to occasionally cook for the Princely Family. So in the end, she worked for four Fürsten of Liechtenstein.

To mark Prince Hans-Adam's birthday, Swiss TV SRF showed a very short biography of his life. Most interestingly, it features footage of Prince Hans-Adam as a young boy together with his parents and brothers Philipp and Nikolaus, a newborn Hereditary Prince Alois, and him playing together with his siblings Max, Constantin and Tatjana around Schloss Vaduz.


And jewellery loving me couldn't help but notice the following shot from Prince Hans-Adam's and Princess Marie's wedding. Upon her marriage, Princess Marie was gifted with a sapphire and diamond necklace that could be converted into a tiara by Liechtenstein's government. I always wondered what said gift looked like and I guess I finally have the answer:


Or maybe it's another wedding gift!? Anyhow, it's too bad we've (to the best of my knowledge) never seen it worn.

2 comments:

  1. What happen to the necklace? I never seen her or anyone wear it.

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  2. No idea. Previously I only knew that Princess Marie was given a sapphire and diamond convertible necklace/tiara but had never seen it. Maybe she doesn't like it or has already gifted it to her daughter. Or maybe she has simply not worn it at an event I have seen pictures of, it's not like the Liechtenstein have a lot of bejewelled events. The Princess seems to prefer pearls anyway. At least she mostly wears pearls whenever she attends such an event.

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