73 - A LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY STICK PIN, WITH 'FF' CROWNED MONOGRAM

A LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY STICK PIN, WITH 'FF' CROWNED MONOGRAM The head designed as the mirrored crowned monogram 'FF', set with rose-cut sapphires and diamonds. Possibly for Frederick Francis IV, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1882-1945). Stamped 585, with a small bird mark Accompanied by a brown box with green and cream silk and velvet interior, inscribed 'R. KAISER Jeweller 10 Church Street York'. Size/dimensions: 6.70cm long Gross weight: 3.70g All stones are present and secure. The gold shows small signs of wear consistent with use, and the shaft is intact and straight. The pin is offered in excellent condition. Friedrich Franz IV was the last reigning Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, until 1918. His sister Alexandrine became Queen of Denmark (see lot 75), and another sister, Cecilie, married the Kaiser’s eldest son. Between the mid-nineteenth century and the First World War, the stick pin was an essential accessory for any well-dressed man, worn to secure and ornament the folds of a cravat or tie. It was also one of the most personal gifts a sovereign or royal household could bestow. Pins set with a crowned cypher or monogram were given as tokens of favour and remembrance to courtiers, officials, household staff, visiting dignitaries, and the guests and companions of royal shooting parties, regattas and state visits. Small enough to be given freely, yet unmistakably royal, they carried their recipient's connection to the court wherever they were worn. Reading these jewels is part of their appeal. The initials are often intertwined or mirrored so that they read in either direction, sometimes with a regnal numeral, and the form of the crown above signals rank: imperial and royal crowns, the archducal crown of the Habsburgs, and the strawberry-leaved coronet of a duke. Many pins survive in the cases of the court jewellers who supplied them, and the cases in this section form a small directory of royal patronage, from Sy & Wagner, Court Goldsmiths in Berlin, and V. Mayer's Söhne, Imperial and Royal Court Jewellers in Vienna, to E. & R. Altenloh, purveyors to the King and Queen of the Belgians, and Benzie of Cowes, the yachtsmen's jeweller. The families represented here, among them Hanover, Denmark, Belgium, Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia and Habsburg Austria, were closely bound together by marriage, and pins such as these passed freely between their courts. Within a few years, many of these monarchies had gone. The war that began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 ended in 1918 with the fall of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, and the crowned cyphers on these small gold jewels belong to a world that vanished almost overnight.