Princess Désirée and her husband, Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld, attend a banquet celebrating the King of Sweden’s 70th birthday at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on April 30, 2016 (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency/Alamy)
Today in Stockholm, the Swedish royal family will say farewell to the King’s sister, Princess Désirée, during a private funeral at the Royal Palace. In her honor, we’re looking today at her final public tiara appearance, which featured a special jewel that had been part of her collection for more than half a century.
Princess Birgitta, Princess Désirée, and Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld attend a banquet celebrating the King of Sweden’s 70th birthday at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on April 30, 2016 (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency/Alamy)
Ten years ago this April, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden celebrated his 70th birthday with a series of events in Stockholm. On April 30, family and friends from Sweden and abroad gathered at the Royal Palace for a birthday banquet, including all four of his sisters. Princess Désirée, the third of the four princesses, arrived for the banquet with her husband, Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld, and her elder sister, Princess Birgitta.
Princess Birgitta, Princess Désirée, and Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld attend a banquet celebrating the King of Sweden’s 70th birthday at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on April 30, 2016 (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency/Alamy)
Both Birgitta and Désirée wore ensembles for the banquet in shades of white and silver, accessorized with diamond jewelry. Birgitta’s dress featured sheer sleeves, while Désirée wore a gown with draping and sparkling embellishments on the bodice.
Princess Birgitta and Princess Désirée attend a banquet celebrating the King of Sweden’s 70th birthday at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on April 30, 2016 (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency/Alamy)
Both of the princesses wore diamond tiaras linked to generations of Swedish royal women from the past. Birgitta borrowed the Baden Fringe Tiara, a royal heirloom that belonged to her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria of Sweden, for the occasion. Désirée opted for a tiara that belonged to her personally: a classic diamond scroll tiara given to her by her grandparents, King Gustaf VI Adolf and Queen Louise of Sweden.
Portrait of Crown Princess Louise of Sweden (Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy)
The tiara had been part of Louise’s collection since her time as Crown Princess of Sweden. She married the widowed Crown Prince Gustaf in 1923, three years after the death of his wife (and Désirée’s grandmother), Princess Margaret of Connaught. Among the presents offered to the new Crown Princess Louise was “a delicate diamond bandeau,” a gift from her brother and sister-in-law, Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina. I’m convinced that this diamond scroll tiara is the Mountbatten bandeau.
Princess Désirée of Sweden walks with Sir John Eccles, the Australian Nobel Prize winner for medicine, at the Nobel Prize banquet in Stockholm on December 10, 1963 (Keystone Press/Alamy)
In the 1950s, when Gustaf’s four granddaughters—Princesses Margaretha, Birgitta, Désirée, and Christina, collectively known as the “Haga Princesses”—began appearing at royal events, Louise often offered the smaller tiaras given to her at the beginning of her marriage to the girls for galas and banquets. Above, Désirée wears the scroll tiara during the Nobel Prize banquet in December 1963. When she married Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld a few months later, Gustaf and Louise gave her the tiara as a wedding present.
Princess Désirée attends a banquet celebrating the King of Sweden’s 70th birthday at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on April 30, 2016 (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency/Alamy)
Désirée wore the tiara often at gala events throughout the years. For her brother’s 70th birthday banquet, she paired it with modern earrings from her own collection, a slender diamond rivière, and a diamond cuff bracelet and matching cocktail ring. (Behind her, a cousin, Princess Benedikte of Denmark, wears another Swedish royal heirloom, Queen Sofia’s Star and Pearl Tiara.)
Princess Christina, Tord Magnuson, and Princess Margaretha attend a banquet celebrating the King of Sweden’s 70th birthday at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on April 30, 2016 (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency/Alamy)
This was one of the last gala occasions attended by all four of the Haga Princesses. Princess Birgitta and Princess Désirée arrived for the banquet behind their eldest and youngest sisters, Princess Margaretha (wearing the Swedish Aquamarine Kokoshnik that belonged to Margaret of Connaught) and Princess Christina (wearing the aquamarine bandeau that belonged to Queen Louise and is now in the collection of Princess Madeleine), and Christina’s husband, Tord Magnuson. Behind them is another cousin, Prince Andreas of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Now, Margaretha and Christina are the only two sisters still living, following Birgitta’s death in December 2024 and Désirée’s passing in January 2026. Margaretha, now 91, lives in Oxfordshire, while 82-year-old Christina still lives in Sweden and makes occasional appearances with the rest of the royal family.