Sotheby's glittering tiara exhibition is a rare treat

If you, like me, still kick yourself for not booking tickets soon enough to get into the Victoria and Albert Museum’s  sold out Tiaras show, redemption is at hand. Get to Sotheby’s on New Bond Street before 28 June to see a dazzling collection, impressively displayed, free to enter and not particularly crowded. 

The exhibition is part of the legendary auction house's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, and I doubt many museums could co-ordinate loans from private owners on the scale you see here. Many of these items carry the names of the families through which they've passed for generations. Most famously there's the Spencer tiara, worn by Princess Diana on her wedding day, but also the Anglesey, FitzWilliam, Hopetoun, Derby, Rosebery and Westminster tiaras. While their wearers are long gone, a fair few of these attended the queen's coronation 69 years ago. One assumes the legendary auction house has either sold to, or sold for, most families who actually have tiaras in the family vault and could thus call in those loans.

Luckily, you don't need to be amongst the heavily bejewelled elite to get in. While the architecture and the doormen might seem intimidating, everyone is ready with a warm welcome and deep excitement about the show.

There are more than 40 tiaras to see here with a smattering of other bits of jewellery to match. Roughly two thirds are in glass cases set into pillars placed across the gallery, with the rest in glass-fronted alcoves in the walls. The most impressive examples in the pillars are set on plinths that slowly rotate. The lighting here is exceptional, in most places coming from rotating discs of multiple colours. While the light they're throwing off appears clear and bright, its effect is to simulate the kind of sparkle you'd get off these jewels when people wore them and moved across a room. Like a really big fireworks show, the effect when you look at the whole place is almost too much to handle. You need to isolate your vision to one thing at a time to fully appreciate the artistry on display.

The boxes set into the walls have a different kind of magic; the jewellery within them seems to levitate, gently floating up and down. There are no wires visible. The illusion is even more fascinating than the tiaras, and visitors will spend a great deal of time trying to figure out the magic.

A quick read of labels shows that tiaras enjoyed a brief heyday from the Regency period through the Edwardian, with the bulk of those displayed here dating from the late 19th century. Many of the gems, however, would have been recycled from earlier settings. The most well-known in its time would probably have been the diamond and emerald example designed for Queen Victoria by her husband Albert. It's on loan from Historic Royal Palaces and also to be seen in a portrait of the young Victoria in the next gallery, where Sotheby's has pulled together a secondary Jubilee exhibition of portraits of all the reigning queens since the conquest. ("regnant" being the key point here. There have been only six.) Albert's tiara design was an early example of gothic revival, to become wildly popular through the rest of the 19th century but fairly unusual in the examples to have lasted.

There are a lot of floral examples, charmingly echoing the celebratory wreaths of flowers that probably inspired those jewelled tiaras. Unlike Victoria's, most of these are monochromatic diamond. I found myself more drawn to more abstract or geometric models, particularly those that veered towards ... or fully embraced ... art deco. More label reading showed that I'm also quite partial to Cartier. Their wave form tiara, c. 1904, was an early example of jewellery-making with platinum, the strength of which allowed more daring designs than softer gold.

Another favourite was Cartier's 1920 bandeau with amethysts. Given my love of purple and white since my days at Northwestern, this would have appealed even before I fell for the geometric harmony of its design. This label also mentions it's amongst the tiaras for sale, price upon request. Should anyone be looking for a gift for me.

My other favourites take me back to the beginning of the great era of tiaras. While no fan of Napoleon, I adore the neo-classical designs he patronised and inspired. The laurel wreath tiara from the 1830s was directly inspired by one of his portraits.

Another favourite that could have come from that era was in fact by Faberge, c. 1903. While the exhibition descriptions don't go into detail, I'd guess someone in Imperial Russia was trying to channel the glories of the Napoleonic Empire. We all know how that went.

Just writing about it is making me want to visit again. And it's easy to do, because admission is free. But I, and you, will need to move fast as it's only on for another two weeks.