Consigned to Sotheby’s London auction Russian Works of Art, Faberge & Icons on 5 June 2018, was a quite remarkable object offering unique insight into the private gifts of the last Tsarina of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna. I ‘discovered’ its existence whilst browsing past auctions for research. Lot 429, it was one of the Tsarina’s personal ledgers dated between 1897 and…
At Hughenden, the Buckinghamshire manor and former home of
Benjamin Disraeli, arguably Queen Victoria’s favourite Prime Minister, is a
room with a poignant link to the family of the Queen’s second daughter,
Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse. The story behind this…
A monument to a royal child: Princess Elizabeth of Clarence
21st August 2019
In the entrance hall of Frogmore House in Windsor Great Park is a sculpture of a royal child, remarkable in the sensitivity of its execution and the fineness of its detail. It may seem on first glance no more than a sentimental monument made to memorialise a beloved child…
It is fitting that this Hessian granddaughter of Queen Victoria was christened ‘Irene’ – a name meaning “peace” – an appropriate choice in more ways than one, as her character and the circumstances of her birth would prove. Perhaps one of Princess Alice’s surviving daughters about which least is known, she was destined to outlive all her immediate family, dying in 1953.
Princess…
In the British Museum, there is a locket containing hair traditionally said to be that of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre.
Donated to the museum as part of the Hull Grundy Gift (Gere, Charlotte; Rudoe, Judy; Tait, Hugh; Wilson, The Art of the Jeweller, A…
“For dear Miss Jackson, with loving Xmas wishes from Alix, 1900”.
With these words, inscribed as a dedication in pencil and today preserved in a frame of its own, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia (1872-1918) sent her Christmas gift of 1900 to Miss Margaret…
In the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at Kensington Palace is preserved one of the most important wedding dresses in British history. Worn by Princess Charlotte (1796-1817) for her wedding on 2 May 1816 in the magnificent Crimson Drawing Room at Carlton House to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. It was a wedding dress to celebrate not only the personal happiness of the popular Princess…
Following the success of his first debut in Munich, playing for the musically-gifted Elector Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria, the six-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart set out for the imperial court of Vienna, arriving on 6 October 1762. He was accompanied by his parents…
Mozart’s musical debut, anticipating his journey to the imperial court at Vienna by seven months, took place, somewhat predictably, before royalty. This was, had he known it, the beginning of what would prove to be many performance-based trips throughout Europe…
Louisa, fifth and youngest daughter of George II and Queen Caroline, was Queen of Denmark and Norway from 1746 until her premature death five years later, in Copenhagen in 1751. Today in Great Britain, Louisa is a virtually forgotten figure – overshadowed by her mother, the brilliant Queen Caroline, a woman of high culture, sophistication and outstanding intellect, rightly recognised now as…
