Bracelets up to her elbows and rings on her thumbs! How bling-crazed Queen Victoria set the standard for statement jewelry (much to the dismay of her staid advisors…)

A ring was the cause of considerable trouble at the coronation of Queen Victoria, and no little pain.

The coronation ring, which had been accidentally made too small, was so firmly on the young queen's ring finger that it could not be removed without the aid of ice water.

However, the infamous episode did nothing to dampen Victoria's love of rings – or of showing them off, much to the chagrin of her advisers.

Photos show her generally wearing one or more rings on both middle and ring fingers and on both hands.

For Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, rings were a particularly sentimental genre and Victoria was a very sentimental woman – who loved jewelry.

Their engagement ring made the point.

Although she, as monarch, had proposed to Prince Albert, it was he who designed the ring himself and added moving symbolism to it.

The whole is designed like a snake with its own tail in its mouth, symbolizing eternal love.

On his head was set a pear-shaped emerald, the queen's birthstone; there was a smaller pear shaped diamond on his neck, ruby ​​red eyes and more diamonds on his face.

Victoria rarely took it off.

When she was buried on January 22, 1901, it was, as she requested, with lots of jewelry.

Her neck was decorated, her wrists were adorned with bracelets and bracelets almost up to the elbows, and she had rings on each finger, including the thumbs.

It has been suggested that she wore so many rings to hide her fingers, which were small and became red and swollen in winter. As a result, she was unable to pull her gloves over them.

In her 1985 book The Royal Jewels, Suzy Menkes writes how the Queen made a “perpetual parade of rings” during a state visit to Paris in 1855 as a guest of Imperial Monarch Napoleon III and his Empress Eugenie.

It was also noted that she wore a large blood-red ruby ​​ring to a state dinner on the same trip.

Menkes says the abundance of rings had “annoyed” Victoria's friend, mentor and first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, a powerful influence in the early years of her reign.

On her death in 1901, Victoria left 21 personal rings to the Crown, among many other jewels, including a few set with hair that, although we have no record, probably belonged to her children.

The coronation accident in 1838 was the fault of the then crown jewelers, Rundell Bridge & Rundell.

When measuring for her coronation ring (until the 20th century, every monarch had a new ring made), Rundells thought it would be placed on her little finger.

They were wrong.

The gold ring itself was beautifully set with an octagonal step-cut sapphire covered with rubies, four oblong and one square cut – to create a cross, and surrounded by brilliant-cut diamonds.

But this one was considerably too small. The Archbishop felt obliged to force it onto the larger ring finger and after the ceremony the Queen had to soak her hand in ice water to remove it.

In her daily diary she wrote: 'had the greatest difficulty in taking it off […] – which I ended up doing with great pain'.

She left this ring together with the personal pieces to the Crown.

The accident could explain why Victoria changed crown jewelers five years later, replacing Rundell, Bridge & Rundell with Garrard & Co.

Today the crown jeweler is Mark Appleby of Mappin & Webb.