Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Count of Paris to meet President Macron in May
Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia's Fabergé Tiara Goes Up For Sale
This week Sotheby's confirmed that a diamond Fabergé tiara, formerly the property of Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia (1886-1954; née Mecklenburg-Schwerin), will go to auction in Geneva on 14 May 2019. The tiara is described by the auction house as "[being] set with three circular-cut diamonds, framed with stylised laurels within an arched surround of lattice work design, joined with rose diamond quatrefoils, central circular motif detachable, six small rose diamonds deficient, unsigned." This magnificent piece was created in 1903 and was a gift to Cecilie upon her marriage in 1905 to Crown Prince Wilhelm, eldest son of Wilhelm II.
The Fabergé tiara did not solely adorn the head of the Crown Princess. In 1949, her youngest child Princess Cecilie (1917-1975) wore the tiara when she married American architect Clyde Harris (1918-1958). Princess Cecilie and Clyde Harris had one child, Kira (b.1954). Princess Cecilie was the only daughter of Crown Princess Cecilie to marry; she was also the only daughter of the Crown Princess to whom the tiara would have been bequeathed. Crown Princess Cecilie's only other daughter, Princess Alexandrine (1915-1980), was affected with Down Syndrome.
Crown Princess Cecilie with her daughters Princess Alexandrine (left) and Princess Cecilie (right) |
For more on this magnificent piece of royal jewellery, please visit Sotheby's: Diamond tiara, attributed to Fabergé, circa 1903
Prince Sergei Poutiatine: The Fate of the Second Husband of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna
Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Poutiatine was born in the Russian Empire on 7 December 1893 at St Petersburg. He was the eldest son of Prince Michael Mikhailovich Poutiatine (1861-1938) and his wife Princess Sofia Sergeevna (1866-1940; née Paltova). Sergei had one younger brother, Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Poutiatine (1897-1953). The Putyatins (Poutiatines) were a Rurikid family with princely and noble lines.
Prince Michael Mikhailovich Poutiatine (left) with Rasputin in the early 1900s |
Sergei attended the Corps des Pages in St Petersburg. Sergei's father Michael was a palace commandant at Tsarkoe Selo. It was there, as youths, that Sergei became acquainted with the young lady who was to become his first wife, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1890-1958). During World War I, Sergei served for four years in the Imperial Fourth Rifle Regiment, where he reached the rank of captain. The prince received the Cross of St George from Emperor Nicholas II for his wartime service. Grand Duchess Maria noted in The Education of a Princess, her first book of memoirs, that "he was a splendid officer, twice wounded, and cited for heroism in action. He came fairly often to our house; I had known him since childhood; but during the war I saw him but seldom."
Again, Maria confided in the pages of The Education of a Princess:
The revolution which brought me to the comparative refuse of Tsarskoie-Selo brought him [Sergei] there also from the front, where - because of his father's situation at court - his position had become dangerous. And now that we were both refugees, in a manner of speaking, at Tsarskoie, he came often to see me at my father's house. Our relations adjusted themselves; our mutual shyness disappeared; we were definitely attracted to each other.
Feelings that I had never before experienced stirred in the depths of my heart. In spite of the revolution, in spite of all the uncertainty, all the anxiety, our unused youth, our fresh mental forces, leaped to claim their due. Spring was upon us, carrying along living floods of new joy. Above all else, one wanted happiness, one wanted to take from life everything that was left for life to give. Our very realisation of the peril, of the indefiniteness of our situation, our constant personal danger, contributed to the awakening of these feelings and set them aglow. Thus, at the collapse of our old world, we dared upon its wreck to seize at a new chance of happiness, to live a new life.
I gave myself entirely over to the strange new delight of being really in love.On 19 September 1917, Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Poutiatine married Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna at Pavlovsk Palace. Maria's father, Grand Duke Paul, was a strong supporter of his daughter's union with Sergei, telling her: "You must find yourself a good man and marry him; then I would feel easy about you... Listen, if you like Poutiatin, I consider that you should marry him."
Shortly after their marriage, the couple resided first at Grand Duke Paul's palace, which was located on the English Embankment in St Petersburg. They moved in with Sergei's parents at the Poutiatine's apartment in the city. Sergei and Maria's only child, a son, was born on 8 July 1918 at Pavlovsk. The infant Prince Roman Sergeievich Poutiatine was baptised on 18 July 1918. On the day of her son's baptism, Grand Duchess Maria lost her half-brother Prince Vladimir Paley and her aunt Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna when they were assassinated by the Bolsheviks at Alapayevsk.
Grand Duchess Maria recalled the loss of her son in her second book of memoirs, A Princess in Exile:
One Monday morning in summer we returned from a quiet week-end in the country and found the usual batch of mail. It included a letter from my mother-in-law. She wrote regularly once a week to give us news of the child, and up till the last letter it had invariably been excellent. The last report was not so good, but there had been nothing alarming about it. Although the letter was addressed to my husband, I opened it myself. From the very first sentence I guessed with a shock that something had happened. I was terror-stricken. Shipping over the first page of preparatory phrases I turned to the second and at the end of it I found the dreadful news. The baby had died.
How ruthlessly death was persecuting us! Was it going to stamp us out altogether?
The baby was exactly a year old. This was the fourth being dear to me whom I had lost within just a few months. The letter that had brought the news of his death contained very few details, and we only learned afterwards how it had occurred. He had been in perfect condition, gaining weight steadily and progressing satisfactorily, when as the hot weather came on he developed intestinal trouble. At first his illness inspired no anxieties, but suddenly from one day to the next he grew worse, had convulsions, and died.
Nothing could describe the despair of his grandparents. Some strange psychological twist in my character made me painfully self-conscious of this new calamity. I concealed it out carefully from my friends in London; only Dmitri knew about it. I feared and wanted to avoid renewed expressions of sympathy; I hated to appear as the embodiment of tragedy.
The weight on my own heart grew heavier, although I was so crushed already by my father's death that most of my sensibility had been blunted, nearly killed. For many years afterwards I was unable to react to joy. Something seemed to have burnt out within me.
Prince Sergei Poutiatine in 1914 |
In exile, the relationship between Prince Sergei and Grand Duchess Maria slowly deteriorated. The loss of their only child was a contributing factor, combined with the massive chaos brought upon by the Revolution and its effect on both families. For a time, Sergei worked at a bank in London. Maria took solace in the renewed company of her brother Grand Duke Dimitri. Maria recalled that her husband "assimilated things with surprising facility. In London he learned to speak fluent English in no time; in Paris he rapidly pickup French, which he had known but forgotten for want of practice, and he could write both languages extremely well." Maria began to discover a purpose and a sense of independence with the founding of her fashion house Kitmir.
Unsurprisingly, the effects of life in exile took a toll on the couple. Again, Maria remembers: "My second marriage, although a 'love match,' had been an unequal union. It had been contracted, moreover, under the stress of a great crisis. As soon as our lives had ceased to be in actual danger and we had to take up our places in organised society, the difference in our tastes and temperaments became apparent." Prince Sergei Poutiatine and Grand Duchess Maria of Russia were divorced in 1924. The grand duchess wrote: "I decided at last on a divorce. My affection for his family was unchanged, and they remained in my care for a number of years. Until Putiatin's remarriage to an American girl, we met occasionally in a friendly way. The divorce proceedings had to go through two phases, the Russian Orthodox Church and the French courts." In 1930, Sergei immigrated to the United States and settled in New York.
Princess Shirley Poutiatine on her wedding day (1906-1990; née Manning) Photograph (c) of The New York Times |
It was in the New World that Prince Sergei Poutiatine found his future. On 12 January 1931, Prince Sergei married Miss Shirley B Manning (b.6 December 1908) at the Russian Orthodox Church of St Augustine in New York City. Shirley was the second daughter and youngest child of John Alexander Manning (1870-1938) and his wife (1878-1964; née Edith Helen Baker). An industrialist, Mr Manning was the president of the John A Manning Paper Company of Albany, president of the Behr-Manning Corporation of Troy, and president of the Schuyler Meadows Club. For many years, he was also the president of Albany Hospital. His daughter, Shirley, was educated at the Fermata School for Girls in Aiken, South Carolina, and at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut.
Prince Sergei and Princess Shirley Poutiatine after their 1931 wedding Photograph (c) The Capital Times |
Prince Sergei became a US citizen on 23 April 1940 at Albany, New York. The naturalisation ceremony was presided over by Justice Francis Bergan of the New York Supreme Court. At the time, Sergei and Shirley Poutiatine were residing in Loudonville, New York. After he became a citizen in the United States, Sergei heartily encouraged others to refer to him as "Mister" Poutiatine - he was not one to put on airs and graces.
In their early years, the couple lived between Loudonville and Paris. However, the hamlet of Loudonville was the town in which the Poutiatines primarily made their home and raised their family. Sergei and Shirley had three children: Prince Ivan Sergeievich Poutiatine (b.3 December 1931), Prince Michael Sergeievich Poutiatine (Albany, New York 8 May 1935-Vero Beach, Florida 17 December 2004), and Princess Mariana Sergeevna Poutiatine (b.6 October 1942). In June 1960, Ivan Poutiatine married Lochiel Cameron; the couple have three sons: Michael (b.1962), Andrew (b.1965), and Peter (b.1969). In May 1965, Michael Poutiatine married Marcia Meserve; they had two daughters, Allison (b.1967) and Jennifer (b.1970). In December 1972, Mariana Poutiatine married Charles Barton Cotten Sr; they have one daughter, Alexandra (b.1975).
Prince Ivan and Princess Lochiel Poutiatine in 2016 Photograph (c) Drew Altizer |
Princess Marcia Poutiatine, widow of Prince Michael, in 2019 Photograph (c) Vero News |
Princess Mariana Poutiatine as a student at Miss Porter's School in 1960 |
Princess Shirley Poutiatine's grave in Charleston, SC Photograph (c) FindAGrave |
Prince Sergei Poutiatine survived his first wife, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, by nearly eight years. Maria died at Mainau on 13 December 1958, aged sixty-eight.
Note: Thanks to Nick Nicholson for his input and revisions in this piece.
Monday, April 8, 2019
The Fourteenth Wedding Anniversary of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall
The Queen Gives Her Consent to the Marriage in Privy Council (© Parliament of the United Kingdom) |
On This Day In History: The Birth of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Hereditary Grand Duke Friedrich Franz Michael of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was born at Palermo on 9 April 1882 as the only son of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III and Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia. The young Friedrich Franz joined an elder sister, Duchess Alexandrine (1879-1952; future Queen of Denmark as the wife of King Christian X), and was followed by a younger sister, Duchess Cecile (1886-1954; future German Crown Princess as the wife of Crown Prince Wilhelm). Friedrich Franz III and Anastasia had been married since January 1879.
Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1851-1897) and Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia (1860-1922) |
Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin |
The grand duke died on 17 November 1945 at Flensburg while in custody of the Royal Air Force. He was sixty-three years-old. Friedrich Franz's grand ducal house became extinct in the male line upon the death of his eldest son in 2001.
Three of the children of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV and Grand Duchess Alexandra married. Of these, only their youngest son and youngest daughter left offspring. In 1954, Duke Christian Ludwig of Mecklenburg-Schwerin married Princess Barbara of Prussia (1920-1994), a daughter of Prince Sigismund of Prussia and Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Altenburg. Christian Ludwig and Barbara had two children: Duchess Donata (b.1956) and Duchess Edwina (b.1960). In 1943, Duchess Anastasia of Mecklenburg-Schwerin married Prince Friedrich Ferdinand of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1913-1989). Anastasia and Friedrich Ferdinand were the parents of four daughters: Princess Elisabeth (b.1945), Princess Irene (b.1946), Princess Margaretha (b.1948), and Princess Sibylla (b.1955).
Duke Christian Ludwig of Mecklenburg (1912-1996) |
Princess Anastasia of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1923-1979; née Mecklenburg-Schwerin) |
Royal Fashion: Karl Lagerfeld and His Blue-Blooded Friends
It has been more than forty-five years of friendship! It was a photo shoot for American Vogue organised by Mary Russell who my mother knew well, and it was done in Karl’s apartment, place Saint-Sulpice, in Paris. We ended up there with Chris von Wangenheim, a wonderful fashion photographer. I wore Chloé clothes that Karl drew. It was a really happy atmosphere, I was very shy at that age.
Forty-five years is more than we know a lot of our own family members. Only my nanny, who passed away last year, knew me as well. We all felt Karl’s death as a family loss. At the death of my father, he supported me, and today it is like I am losing a close family member again. My children also felt this very painfully. They have known Karl since their birth. He was home the day before the day I gave birth to Andrea, he took a picture of me on the stairs. He was there when they were born.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Archduchess Sophie of Austria: An Imperial Designer
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