December 2012: A delicate diamond bow brooch is photographed atop an order sheet from Mellerio dits Meller that details purchases made in 1867 by Eugénie, the last Empress of the French
Vintage Royals: Prince Alfred Pitches Woo
A cartoon from a July 1873 issue of Punch, a satirical magazine, depicts the courtship of Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria, and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Alfred wears his naval uniform and fiddles from the prow of a boat named Galatea, the Royal Navy frigate he commanded. Maria watches from a window decorated with the imperial arms of the House of Romanov and two bears, animals often used by Westerners to represent Russia
Vintage Royals: Ernst August and Ortrud
Prince Ernst August IV of Hanover (grandson of the last Duke and Duchess of Cumberland) and Princess Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg on their wedding day in 1951. They are the parents of Prince Ernst August V, the current head of the House of Hanover, and the grandparents of Princess Alexandra of Hanover (daughter of Ernst August and Caroline of Monaco). Behind her tiara, Ortrud is wearing Queen Charlotte’s diamond nuptial crown, won by the Hanoverians in a lawsuit against Queen Victoria in the 1850s