Margrethe II's Van Cleef & Arpels engagement ring compared with that of Elizabeth II

Perhaps my favourite, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, has the weightiest engagement ring of any European queen of the twentieth century. Similar to the engagement ring of Josephine and of Jacqueline Kennedy in the toi et moi style (“you and me”, French), Margrethe’s ring from the house of Van Cleef & Arpels is set with several small baguettes and two six-carat diamonds, which is more than the most expensive ring in this style, with a blue and a clear diamond weighing 5 and 5.4 carats and a selling price at Sotheby’s of $6 million. Queen Elizabeth II of England, by contrast, has a considerably smaller engagement ring, with three carats, which, admittedly, came from the tiara of Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark.

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Margrethe II's Van Cleef & Arpels engagement ring compared with that of Elizabeth II

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s