A new exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum has made some visitors so emotional that they have been reduced to tears – more than 100 years after the death of the woman whose jewels are on display.

Queen Victoria’s dazzling sapphire and diamond coronet was gifted to the museum and is the centrepiece of its newly reopened jewellery gallery.

The monarch wore the jewels instead of her coronation crown when she emerged from mourning in 1866 to attend the state opening of parliament five years after Albert’s death.

The coronet has been seen by some in preparation for its public unveiling on Thursday at the V&A, where it goes on permanent display.

Richard Edgcumbe, senior curator at the museum, said it had made onlookers emotional.

“They love it ... people are just reduced, in some cases, to the odd tear,” he said.

Queen Victoria’s sapphire and diamond coronet was designed by Prince Albert in 1840, the couple’s wedding year. Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for The V&A

“Even last week, a Romanian case maker [working on the display] was asking, ‘Can I touch it?’ And what the women of Britain have thought about it is just the same.”

The small crown was designed for Victoria by Prince Albert in the couple’s wedding year, 1840, and she wore it in a famous portrait in 1842 that took the monarch’s image around the world.

“It’s not big, it’s delicate but beautiful,” Edgcumbe said. “It’s the widow as well as the young queen.”

The coronet, made by the goldsmith Joseph Kitching for £415, has been gifted to the V&A by the financier and philanthropist William Bollinger.

Other dazzling objects on display in the William and Judith Bollinger gallery include Beyoncé’s Papillon ring, which the singer gave to the museum.

The laying of the foundation stone for the V&A building in 1899 was Victoria’s last public appearance before her death in 1901.

The V&A director, Tristram Hunt, said the coronet was “one of the greatest jewels to survive from the early decades of her reign”.