Overview
- Queen Letizia, at El País’s 50th anniversary in Barcelona on Monday, paired a diamond necklace and earrings with an off-the-shoulder Mango dress.
- She has turned to the set for high-profile moments, including Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement in 2019 and a 2024 official portrait by Annie Leibovitz, which highlights its role in formal representation.
- Archival records note an Ansorena invoice held in the General Archive of the Royal Palace that documents King Alfonso XIII’s 1906 rivière necklace gift.
- Alfonso added diamonds over the years, bringing the piece to about 100 stones by 1930, and it was later split into strands with matching earrings fashioned to suit the necklace.
- The jewels carry a painful backstory from the couple’s 1906 wedding procession, when a bomb attack killed 24 people and wounded about 100 near their carriage.