Downton Abbey Trivia

The tiara worn by Queen Mary in Downton Abbey was 

meticulously copied. Queen Mary purchased this tiara from

a troubled Russian monarchy. The movie takes place in 1927 and the VLadimir tiara was 

purchased previously in 1922. It is worn frequently by Queen Elizabeth because the pearls are interchangeable with huge emeralds.

 The Vladimir tiara is worthy of a James Bond movie. Stashed in a wall in a palace in St. Petersburg, where it would be safe during the Russian Revolution, and then secretly smuggled out of Russia—by British intelligence officers dressed as either workmen or old ladies, depending on the tale you believe. Whichever of those disguises were actually employed to save this Romanov jewel, one actually worked.

The Vladimir tiara made it out of Russia—possibly the last treasure to do so—and into the hands of the Grand Duchess Vladimir’s children by 1921. At the time, however, they needed money more than diamond and pearl tiaras, so they sold it to Queen Mary (who could never have enough). Soon after acquiring the tiara (and five years before the action of the Downton Abbey movie), Mary decided it needed some refashioning; it also need a repair; escape from Bolshevik revolutionaries can be hard on a stone.

Queen Mary had it redone so that the pearls could be switched out for her collection of Cambridge emerald drops when she was gripped by the the urge go green. She used 15 of the famed gems to make the change.

These stones, part of a stash won by her grandmother, the original Duchess of Cambridge, in a lottery, almost left the royal family forever when Queen Mary’s brother bequeathed them to his mistress. Queen Mary quickly took care of that.
information courtesy of Town and Country Magazine
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/jewelry-and-watches/a28965089/downton-abbey-movie-queen-mary-vladimir-tiara/